The siren didn’t stop.
Stopping it became a sort of willed goal for Minerva. She was shaken by it, physically, and emotionally also. If a thing like that went on very long, she thought, it would drive a person mad.
It went on and on, and she sat alternately raging and cowering, growing desperate at first with the thought that she might be late for her dinner party, and soon becoming a little hysterical with the thought of nothing but the siren and its interminable, buzz-saw effect on her nerves.
Willis, her chauffeur, seeking police, was approached by two burly air-raid wardens who promptly thrust him into a shelter, paying not the slightest attention to his protests. They then took up guarding positions among the late shoppers, early diners, truck drivers and motorists who were by and large enjoying this change from regular habits.
The paired wardens, who Minerva was later to claim had “forcibly restrained” her, found two policemen sitting in a squad car, smoking, gazing with rapt amazement at a city jam-packed with cars in which there was nobody at all. “Big fat woman in a limousine up the line won’t take shelter.”
The cops eyed the wardens. “Carry her into a building,” one cop suggested.
“Says she’s Minerva Sloan.”
The cops both lost their grins. “Let her sit,” one said.
The warden protested in an eager-beaver tone, “We’re supposed to get everybody —but everybody!—off the streets. And the police are supposed to help —if people refuse….”
The older cop batted his cap back on his head and blew smoke. “Look, bud. In this territory, if Mrs. Sloan says she won’t co-operate, there will be no co-operation, believe me.”