'must be'
'laws'
'dogs'
'unnatural'
'God knows'
And everything else - as if someone were speaking through a fan, and only the quickest speech-pieces made it between the blades - was chopped and whished into a single voice, indistinguishable from the rub of clothes and human weight against the walls and door.
'Sig,' I said. 'They're out in the hall.'
'Massing the forces of justice?' he asked.
'Are you staying in the tub?'
'Why, hello!' he cried. 'Look here!' And there was a lot of splashing. 'Lash marks!' he said. 'Whippings! Pink as your tongue, Graff. You did some job with your switch, you should see.'
'I couldn't get you off him,' I said.
'My ass is remarkable!' he said. 'Veritable grooves!' And I heard him plunking and skidding in the tub.
Then there was a tiny knocking on the door, and the hall was very quiet; there were only two feet taking up the light slot now.
'Graff?' said my Gallon.
'Have they made you our Judas?' I said.
'Oh, Graff,' she said.
Then weight came against the door, and someone was trying a key.
'Stand back!' said Auntie Tratt.
'It's unlocked,' I told them.
A uniformed policeman booted the door open, springing the knob; he came sideways into the room, and the doorway filled behind him. Anxious Auntie Tratt, her arms crossed; the newly sponged man, pushing his shiny knees into the room; between them was the assassin, or the mayor. And nowhere was my Gallen now.
'Where's the other one?' said the sponged man, walking his knees forward.
And Siggy said, 'You should see, Graff,' and opened the bathroom door.
He flashed to all of us his stinging, washed bottom. The pink scars glowed across his rump like the tilted smiles of new moons.
'There!' said Auntie Tratt. 'Do you see?'
And it was the mayor, all right - the formidable Burger-meister, who hadn't removed his beret for Auntie Tratt, but who removed it now with a precise nod to the fanny poised in the bathroom doorway. A perfect job of doffing, quick enough to catch the fanny before Siggy leapt his hind end back in the bathroom and whomped shut the door.
'I see, Frau Tratt,' said the mayor. 'We all see, I'm sure.' And he barely raised his voice. 'Herr Javotnik?' he called. 'Herr Siegfried Javotnik.'
But we could hear Siggy padding across the bathroom floor; he thumped up on the platform and plunked back in the tub.
The Revealing of Crimes
HE WOULDN'T UNLOCK the bathroom door, so we all waited in the lobby downstairs - all of us except one policeman, who was left behind to search our room.
The very upset pink man said, 'Herr Burgermeister, I can't understand why we just don't smash down the door.' But the mayor was watching his other policeman, leading the milkman through the courtyard and up the castle stoop.