[00:01.080]--- lesson 58 A spot of bother
[00:06.000]--- Listen to the tape then answer the question below.
[00:11.600]--- What did the old lady find when she got home?
[00:17.520]The old lady was glad to be back at the block of flats where she lived.
[00:23.160]Her shopping had tired her and her basket had grown heavier with every step of the way home.
[00:30.160]In the lift her thoughts were on lunch and a good rest;
[00:34.600]but when she got out at her own floor, both were forgotten in her sudden discovery that her front door was open.
[00:43.000]She was thinking that she must reprimand her home help the next morning for such a monstrous piece of negligence,
[00:50.440]when she remembered that she had gone shopping after the home help had left and she knew that she had turned both keys in their locks.
[01:00.120]She walked slowly into the hall and at once noticed that all the room doors were open,
[01:06.480]yet following her regular practice she had shut them before going out.
[01:11.640]Looking into the drawing room, she saw a scene of confusion over by her writing desk.
[01:18.240]It was as clear as daylight then that burglars had forced an entry during her absence.
[01:24.800]Her first impulse was to go round all the rooms looking for the thieves,
[01:29.680]but then she decided that at her age it might be more prudent to have someone with her,
[01:35.320]so she went to fetch the porter from his basement.
[01:38.640]By this time her legs were beginning to tremble, so she sat down and accepted a cup of very strong tea, while he telephoned the police.
[01:49.000]Then, her composure regained, she was ready to set off with the porter's assistance to search for any intruders who might still be lurking in her flat.
[02:00.160]They went through the rooms, being careful to touch nothing,
[02:04.080]as they did not want to hinder the police in their search for fingerprints.
[02:08.680]The chaos was inconceivable.
[02:11.640]She had lived in the flat for thirty years and was a veritable magpie at hoarding;
[02:17.680]and it seemed as though everything she possessed had been tossed out and turned over and over.
[02:24.000]At least sorting out the things she should have discarded years ago was now being made easier for her.
[02:30.760]Then a police inspector arrived with a constable and she told them of her discovery of the ransacked flat.
[02:38.400]The inspector began to look for fingerprints, while the constable checked that the front door locks had not been forced,
[02:46.200]thereby proving that the burglars had either used skeleton keys or entered over the balcony.
[02:53.160]There was no trace of fingerprints,
[02:55.560]but the inspector found a dirty red bundle that contained jewellery which the old lady said was not hers.
[03:03.920]So their entry into this flat was apparently not the burglars' first job that day and they must have been disturbed.
[03:12.600]The inspector then asked the old lady to try to check what was missing by the next day and advised her not to stay alone in the flat for a few nights.
[03:23.200]The old lady thought he was a fussy creature,
[03:26.560]but since the porter agreed with him, she rang up her daughter and asked for her help in what she described as a little spot of bother.