Fenn arrived at the theatre a quarter of an hour before the curtain rose. Going down a gloomy alley of the High Street, he found himself at the stage door, where he made inquiries of a depressed-looking man with a bad cold in the head as to the whereabouts of his brother. It seemed that he was with Mr Higgs. If he would wait, said the door-keeper, his name should be sent up. Fenn waited, while the door-keeper made polite conversation by describing his symptoms to him in a hoarse growl. Presently the minion who had been despatched to the upper regions with Fenn's message returned. Would he go upstairs, third door on the left. Fenn followed the instructions, and found himself in a small room, a third of which was filled by a huge iron-bound chest, another third by a very stout man and a dressing-table, while the rest of the space was comparatively empty, being occupied by a wooden chair with three legs. On this seat his brother was trying to balance himself, giving what part of his attention was not required for this feat to listening to some story the fat man was telling him. Fenn had heard his deep voice booming as he went up the passage. His brother did the honours. "Glad to see you, glad to see you," said Mr Higgs, for the fat man was none other than that celebrity. "Take a seat." Fenn sat down on the chest and promptly tore his trousers on a jagged piece of iron. "These provincial dressing-rooms!" said Mr Higgs, by way of comment. "No room! Never any room! No chairs! Nothing!" He spoke in short, quick sentences, and gasped between each. Fenn said it really didn't matter--he was quite comfortable. "Haven't they done anything about it?" asked Fenn's brother, resuming the conversation which Fenn's entrance had interrupted. "We've been having a burglary here," he explained. "Somebody got into the theatre last night through a window. I don't know what they expected to find." "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?"