This is not what most people would think of as an action sequence, but it involved a surprising amount of choreography (or maybe what the theater people call “blocking”, I don’t know). Basically, the characters’ movements ended up being somewhat different in the final scene relative to what we see below:

Bertram jumped to his feet, turned and snatched his chair, holding it out between him and the dog as if he were a lion-tamer. His secretary, Julius Muller, stood up abruptly a moment later. The dog was barking furiously and jumping up and down in place.
I discreetly hitched up my skirt and started to pull my knife out of the sheath I wore on my thigh, but Maxim stopped me with a hand on my arm.
“Stay calm, everyone,” he said to the room at large.
I understood what he meant now that I was watching the dog more closely. With his bouncing movements and lashing tail, the mastiff didn’t seem angry, just excited. Maxim rose to his feet and moved toward the animal.