Harpur read the lead story in it across the table to Iles fairly sotto. An Alert archive head and shoulders picture of the ACC, taken on the previous clean-up visit, was let into the bottom half of the column. ‘When we refer to strange happenings we do not mean strange happenings within the play itself,’ the writer said, ‘though there are certainly enough of those. No, this concerns the audience, or, more exactly, one member of it, Row 4, fauteuil 12. ‘As we understand it, there were two incidents. In the first of these, 4/12 suddenly stood, obscuring the stage for several folk behind, and started an impromptu conversation with one of the play’s characters, the Duke Vendici, or Vindici. The Duke had been complaining in bitter style about his abused heart strings getting turned into fret, the way Dukes do in some dramas. ‘Up pops 4/12 to say that, as a matter of fact, he knows just how the Duke feels, and to ask, very ironically, very peeved, whether anyone will write a play about his heart strings, his fret?
