So tense was Eustace’s concentration that he did not see Billie Bennett, seated in the front row. Billie had watched him enter with a little thrill of embarrassment. She wished that she had been content with one of the seats at the back. But her friend Jane Hubbard, who accompanied her, had insisted on the front row.
In order to avoid recognition for as long as possible, Billie now put up her fan and turned to Jane. She was surprised to see that her friend was staring eagerly before her with a fixity almost equal to that of Eustace.
“What is the matter, Jane?”
Jane Hubbard was a tall, handsome girl with large brown eyes. About her, as Bream Mortimer had said, there was something dynamic. The daughter of an eminent explorer and big-game hunter, she had frequently accompanied her father on his expeditions. An out-doors girl.
“Who is that man at the piano?” she whispered. “Do you know him?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” said Billie. “His name is Hignett. Why?”
“I met him on the Subway not long ago. Poor little fellow, how miserable he looks!”
At this moment their conversation was interrupted. Eustace Hignett, pulling himself together with a painful effort, raised his hands and struck a crashing chord: and, as he did so, there appeared through the door at the far end of the saloon a figure at the sight of which the entire audience started convulsively with a feeling that a worse thing had befallen them than even they had looked for.
The figure was richly clad in some scarlet material. Its face was a grisly black and below the nose appeared what seemed a horrible gash. It advanced towards them, smoking a cigar.
“Hullo, Ernest,” it said.
And then it seemed to pause expectantly, as though desiring some reply. Dead silence reigned in the saloon.
“Hullo, Ernest!”
Those nearest the piano—and nobody more quickly than Jane Hubbard—now observed that the white face of the man on the stool had grown whiter still. His eyes gazed out glassily from under his damp brow. He looked like a man who was seeing some ghastly sight. The audience sympathised with him. They felt like that, too.
In all human plans there is ever some slight hitch, some little miscalculation which just makes all the difference. A moment’s thought should have told Eustace Hignett that a half-smoked cigar was one of the essential properties to any imitation of the eminent Mr. Tinney: but he had completely overlooked the fact. The cigar came as an absolute surprise to him and it could not have affected him more powerfully if it had been a voice from the tomb. He stared at it pallidly, like Macbeth at the ghost of Banquo. It was a strong, lively young cigar, and its curling smoke played lightly about his nostrils. His jaw fell. His eyes protruded. He looked for a long moment like one of those deep-sea fishes concerning which the recent lecturer had spoken so searchingly. Then with the cry of a stricken animal, he bounded from his seat and fled for the deck.
There was a rustle of millinery at Billie’s side as Jane Hubbard rose and followed him. Jane was deeply stirred. Even as he sat, looking so pale and piteous, at the piano, her big heart had gone out to him, and now, in his moment of anguish, he seemed to bring to the surface everything that was best and most compassionate in her nature. Thrusting aside a steward who happened to be between her and the door, she raced in pursuit.
Sam Marlowe had watched his cousin’s dash for the open with a consternation so complete that his sense seemed to have left him. A general, deserted by his men on some stricken field, might have felt something akin to his emotion. Of all the learned professions, the imitation of Mr. Frank Tinney is the one which can least easily be carried through single-handed. The man at the piano, the leader of the orchestra, is essential. He is the life-blood of the entertainment. Without him, nothing can be done.
For an instant Sam stood there, gaping blankly. Then the open door of the saloon seemed to beckon an invitation. He made for it, reached it, passed through it. That concluded his efforts in aid of the Seamen’s Orphans and Widows.