Hastings & Stacey on the train

Hastings shoves his golf clubs and rifle case up into the overhead compartment tenderly, and his trunk with a little less care. He exhales, glad to be rid of the load, before tossing his fedora on the seat and disentangling himself from his long coat and gloves by the reflection of the darkened glass.

Lonesome nighttime moors as far as the eye can see, which reminds him of The Hound of the Baskervilles, which reminds him he really should be editing the next Poirot account, not checking the races like he was while waiting in the station. He turns with a polite smile that shifts to something of vague recognition when the carriage door opens.

"Oh! Say, aren't you--?" He's certain he's seen the younger man before, but who with? Charles' boating party; Lawrence's cricket match? It could have been anywhere.

Stacey peers into the carriage with an almost owlish expression until his gaze settles on Hastings. There's a flicker of recognition, or at least the sight of a friendly face.

"Eustace Seyfried? Yes, it seems that's me," Stacey answers in a voice far more sonorous than his appearance would suggest. He lugs a large suitcase into the carriage; it seems anything else he needs is stuffed into his bulging coat pockets. "And you are...someone whose name has taken leave of me, it seems! Sorry, happens frightfully often, it seems."

Instead of bothering with the overhead compartment, Stacey just places his suitcase in the seat next to his own. He almost drops a gold-topped cane in the process, but catches it as he sits down.

"Right, where were we? ...Your name, I believe?"

Hastings chuckles, warming to other man's exuberance--he definitely recognizes him now that he's heard the voice. He settles into his own seat with a little less flourish, transferring his fedora to his knee.

"Oh, there's no reason you should know me, really." He offers him a hand genially. "We met last year when Charlie was showing off his new speedboat. I'm--" He hesitates. Charlie had introduced Seyfried with starry eyes as his "actor friend", but Hastings is at a bit of a loss for how to distinguish himself. What has he done? Little, really, unless he counts the war, which he doesn't want to.

"Captain Arthur Hastings--I was Charlie's house captain," he finishes lamely. Well, there's only been a little over twenty years since that dubious achievement. He tries to rescue himself with a bit of easy conversation. "I must have graduated a year or two before you entered. What brings you to the country, Mr. Seyfried?"

"Why, a spot of adventure, of course!...Or at the very least, a change of scenery." Stacey gestures to the carriage window, even if the passing landscape outside is obscured by darkness. "It seems my life of late involves being bounced from one city to the next, and when one grows up secluded in the countryside, one occasionally misses being surrounded by greenery."

Granted, his own curiosity also bade him head to the countryside, but no need to mention that when all he's got his rumors and guesswork. He starts to shuffle through his pockets to find one of his notebooks anyway.

"And what about you? Also on the run from the city for a bit?"

"As a matter of fact, yes!" Hastings beams, pleased his fellow alumn is of a similar mind. "I mean, I do enjoy London, but I like to break up the hustle and bustle by taking my holidays in the countryside. I thought I'd give Deering Vale a go, as I've heard the grouse hunting is uncommonly good this year." He nods up at the antique leather rifle case sitting with the rest of the luggage.

"Nice woodland hikes too, though I've heard there's a nasty bit of quicksand you have to steer clear of. I thought I read something about ancient standing stones as well? No, perhaps those are only a folly... Well," he shrugs, "it promises to be very picturesque, anyway. Are you for the hunting or the history, Mr. Seyfried?"

Stacey's eyes light up at the mention of the quicksand--something straight out of an adventure novel, it sounds like. But the standing stones, that's what gets him to start talking. "I've heard rumors about those standing stones, yes! That's actually how I heard about Deering Vale in the first place, amongst other things. Have you ever heard the theory that standing stones--like Stonehenge, for example--were actually burial sites for ancient civilizations? I mean, how fascinating it would be to study them and investigate the presence of..."

He trails off for a moment, as if his train of thought has momentarily departed mid-sentence. He pauses, makes a show of flipping through a notebook, then resumes in a calmer voice, "Ah, forgive me. I get a tad carried away at times, or so I'm told. But yes, I'm most definitely here more for the history. My aim is not so true that I could hit a grouse with one of these, I'm afraid." He flips the notebook around to show a sketch of some standing stones, surrounded by the tiniest scrawling notes possible.

Time moves on, and the train moves along the line. After a couple of hours, the conductor pops his head into your compartment and announces that the dining car is closing. About an hour after that, the train steward comes into your car and hands you both blankets and pillows, and offers to make makeshift beds for you on each compartment bench. You settle into the beds, and drift off to sleep, since you won't be at Deering Vale till morning.

Night, in Stacey's mind, has only two purposes: secret and often dangerous adventures, or sleeping. Whoever is trying to slip his suitcase out from under him clearly doesn't share this view, and must be corrected.

Calling to mind a schoolteacher he'd otherwise rather forget, Stacey grabs his cane (always close by, even in sleep) and attempts to rap the assailant's knuckles. Or just whack them until they let go of the case, whichever occurs first.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you, dead men tell no...wait, wrong quote. Anyway, unhand that, scoundrel!" The situation is so ludicrous, so something out of a show like his own, that he's slipped into his deep radio voice.

You hear a high pitched squeal, a rush of movement, and the door to the compartment slams open, as the figure runs out.

The noise in the compartment wakes up Hastings, who sees the outline of Stacey, with his arms wrapped around a very long thin object, which looks like his cane, ready to strike.

Your compartment is filled with gas and ransacked, with all of your luggage open on the floor.

You hear noises out in the hallway, which sounds like people running up the passage, and yelling.

The scenario is also reminiscent of something for Hastings--a mustard gas attack in the trenches, in fact. For a brief moment he's a soldier again, catching sight of the figures and instinctively reaching for his gun in its holster--no, wait, his revolver in his jacket, and this is a train. Thankfully, it's still there.

He sits up quickly, taking stock of the chaos about as efficiently as in the trenches. Seyfried's alone, floor ransacked, don't breathe in too deeply and... He glances up at his case of hunting rifles. Oh, good, that's still there too.

"Seyfried, they're gone," he half-barks, half-coughs, lapsing into the voice of an officer talking to a subordinate. In the heat of the "battle" Hastings decides that any member of Charlie's Eton posse is probably not going to be much use in combat, though Hastings has to admit that Seyfried does have an impressively strong (and, apparently, accurate?) swing with that cane. "But where the deuce--?" He pops his head out of the doorway, keeping his revolver ready. Somebody was yelling about Scotland Yard, and he's certain he heard a woman or child shriek, but it's still dark and difficult to see.

((shifting over to join the flailing in the hallway))