新概念英语第三册英音版 58－A spot of bother

[al:新概念英语（三）]
[ar:MP3 同步字幕版（英音）]
[ti:A Spot of Bother]
[by:更多学习内容，请到chazidian.com搜索“新概念”]
[00:01.46]Lesson 58
[00:03.29]A spot of bother
[00:12.00]What did the old lady find when she got home?
[00:17.98]The old lady was glad to be back at the block of flats where she lived.
[00:23.54]Her shopping had tired her and her basket had grown heavier with every step of the way home.
[00:30.57]In the lift her thoughts were on lunch and a good rest;
[00:34.98]but when she got out at her own floor,
[00:37.66]both were forgotten in her sudden discovery that her front door was open.
[00:43.41]She was thinking that she must reprimand her home help the next morning for such a monstrous piece of negligence,
[00:50.74]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.
[01:00.57]She walked slowly into the hall and at once noticed that all the room doors were open,
[01:06.95]yet following her regular practice she had shut them before going out.
[01:12.07]Looking into the drawing room, she saw a scene of confusion over by her writing desk.
[01:18.68]It was as clear as daylight then that burglars had forced an entry during her absence.
[01:25.16]Her first impulse was to go round all the rooms looking for the thieves,
[01:30.17]but then she decided that at her age it might be more prudent to have someone with her,
[01:35.57]so she went to fetch the porter from his basement.
[01:39.02]By this time her legs were beginning to tremble,
[01:42.71]so she sat down and accepted a cup of very strong tea, while he telephoned the police.
[01:49.46]Then, her composure regained, she was ready to set off with the porter's assistance
[01:55.05]to search for any intruders who might still be lurking in her flat.
[02:00.55]They went through the rooms, being careful to touch nothing,
[02:04.45]as they did not want to hinder the police in their search for fingerprints.
[02:09.08]The chaos was inconceivable.
[02:11.99]She had lived in the flat for thirty years and was a veritable magpie at hoarding:
[02:17.86]and it seemed as though everything she possessed had been tossed out and turned over and over.
[02:24.44]At least sorting out the things she should have discarded years ago was now being made easier for her.
[02:31.11]Then a police inspector arrived with a constable
[02:34.62]and she told them of her discovery of the ransacked flat.
[02:38.82]The inspector began to look for fingerprints,
[02:41.44]while the constable checked that the front door locks had not been forced,
[02:46.44]thereby proving that the burglars had either used skeleton keys or entered over the balcony.
[02:53.64]There was no trace of fingerprints,
[02:55.90]but the inspector found a dirty red bundle that contained jewellery which the old lady said was not hers.
[03:04.32]So their entry into this flat was apparently not the burglars' first job that day and they must have been disturbed.
[03:13.00]The inspector then asked the old lady to try to check what was missing by the next day,
[03:18.70]and advised her not to stay alone in the flat for a few nights.
[03:23.64]The old lady thought he was a fussy creature,
[03:26.80]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.