"Why," said Fenn, "we've had a burglar up our way too. Chap broke into the school house and went through the old man's drawing-room. The school house men have been talking about nothing else ever since. I wonder if it's the same crew."
Mr Higgs turned in his chair, and waved a stick of grease paint impressively to emphasise his point.
"There," he said. "There! What I've been saying all along. No doubt of it. Organised gang. And what are the police doing? Nothing, sir, nothing. Making inquiries. Rot! What's the good of inquiries?"
Fenn's brother suggested mildly that inquiries were a good beginning. You must start somehow. Mr Higgs scouted the idea.
"There ought not to be any doubt, sir. They ought to know. To KNOW," he added, with firmness.
At this point there filtered through the closed doors the strains of the opening chorus.
"By Jove, it's begun!" said Fenn's brother. "Come on, Bob."
"Where are we going to?" asked Fenn, as he followed. "The wings?"
But it seemed that the rules of Mr Higgs' company prevented any outsider taking up his position in that desirable quarter. The only place from which it was possible to watch the performance, except by going to the front of the house, was the "flies," situated near the roof of the building.
Fenn found all the pleasures of novelty in watching the players from this lofty position. Judged by the cold light of reason, it was not the best place from which to see a play. It was possible to gain only a very foreshortened view of the actors. But it was a change after sitting "in front".