Coming

I ran to Aunt Selina and tried to straighten her head. In a moment she
opened her eyes, sat up and stared around her. She saw the kettle at
once.

"What are you doing with boiling water on the floor?" she said to me,
with her returning voice. "Don't you know you will spoil the floor?" The
ruling passion was strong with Aunt Selina, as usual.

I could not find out the trouble from any one; people appeared and
disappeared, carrying strange articles. Anne with a rope, Dal with his
hatchet, Bella and the kettle, but I could get a coherent explanation
from no one. When the guards finally decided that Jim was in earnest,
and that the rest of us were not crawling out a rear window while he
held them at the door, they came in, three of them and two reporters,
and Jim led them to the butler's pantry.

Here we found Anne, very white and shaky, with the pantry table and two
chairs piled against the door of the kitchen slide, and clutching the
chamois-skin bag that held her jewels. She had a bottle of burgundy open
beside her, and was pouring herself a glass with shaking hands when we
appeared. She was furious at Jim.

"I very nearly fainted," she said hysterically. "I might have been
murdered, and no one would have cared. I wish they would stop that
chopping, I'm so nervous I could scream."

Jim took the Burgundy from her with one hand and pointed the police to
the barricaded door with the other.