Re: The Stowaway/The Diplomat
Happened that there were more than enough rich folk on the train for one or two to get lost all the way to steerage. They were all wandering now, weaving like bees around a hive as the calls went out down along the line of the tracks for the lost. Didn't happen that they knew the lost, those searching. Some people were drawn to calamity, they liked the attention, the excitement. He liked the hell out of excitement, but the kind that was first hand, instead of lived proximity. But seeing a swell travel back toward third class and the rear, Charlie would have thought after a bit of skirt. Stood to reason, generally speaking, and he'd seen it all.
The train stopping was as good a reason as any to find someplace out of the way. Could have crouched in among the trunks, given the lack of motion meant no chance of them sliding about and taking his head off his shoulders. It was a handsome one, which he knew well enough before he boarded and Charlie took as much advantage as he could. He heard the door go, the interior one and he straightened up from lazing over the rail at the back and got ready his best, most lackadaisical smile. The kind who came to the baggage car when the train stopped were the rich who checked over their belongings and the opportunistic ones who rifled them. Charlie was bored stiff from talking to nobody but himself, and he could talk the hind leg off an ass if it got him out of trouble so between the two, he was ready for a whole lot of talking.
He stuffed the case into his left pocket and disposed of the dead match over the side of the rail and when he saw the person who came through the door was head and shoulders above a fussy female, then Charlie swept him over in frank assessment of whether he needed to roll up his own sleeves. Generally speaking, that is. They were folded back from his wrists, because the cuffs were fraying. The man was a swell, in an expensive suit and he probably wafted money. Charlie had only known money to have the kind of smell crammed in the bottom of a pocket and spent reluctantly, which was warm and odorous of panic. But the man smelled of money. Charlie disliked swells on sight, and his brows came down over the green eyes and the smile wiped clear.
"Sir." Which was deliberately insolent, but there wasn't a helluva lot anyone could do with 'sir'. Complaining about the way it was said was ridiculous, and that was exactly why Charlie did it.