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* * *
Leonard hurried after Amos, who was hurrying after Decker, who was simply following the crowd. It had taken him a few minutes to catch on, but he understood now what Irene and those other women had been planning. It was very clever disguising their plans in the form of a recipe. He’d have to ask Lucille more about that later when they were alone and not panting for breath.
They stopped outside Sidney Poole’s barbershop, which seemed to be where the crowd had gathered. “They’re in there!” a man shouted, pointing at the barbershop door. “I saw them run in! The Beauty Bandits! Two blonde women!”
Decker had his gun out and was pointing it at the barbershop as if he meant to just start shooting. Lucille’s eyes were wide and frightened. “Just two?” he asked the man who had shouted out.
“That’s right,” said the man.
“I saw three!” shouted a woman.
“I saw five!” shouted a child. The crowd was starting to spot Beauty Bandits left and right, and Leonard sensed the growing danger Lucille’s friends were in should they get caught.
Lucille whispered to him, “We can’t let them get shot!”
He was watching Decker closely as the marshal pointed his gun at everything that jumped. With so many people out, there was quite a bit of jumping. Luckily, Amos was on his toes right now. He demanded that Decker holster his gun before he accidentally shot someone. Decker, surprisingly, complied. Though he did so with a begrudging attitude.
Francis and Betty suddenly appeared in the crowd and came hurrying towards him and Lucy. The four of them grouped together with Leonard at the center. “Glad to see you out of that cell,” Betty said. “Irene and Belle are inside the barbershop.” She looked about to cry.
“What happened?” asked Leonard. He wouldn’t normally want to discuss such things in so open a place, but with everything that was going on, no one was paying them the slightest bit of attention. He didn’t think anyone could even hear them with all the shouting that was going on, not without getting closer to them, at least.
Betty and Francis exchanged a look. “I was standing outside the train watching for Decker,” said Francis, whose cheeks were red. “I told them to go a mile out like we normally do, but Irene thought the robbery would have a bigger impact if they did it right there at the station. One of the ticket takers got away and ran to get help.”
“We barely had to do anything on the train, just hold our guns up and announce ourselves,” said Betty.
“Did you put bullets in your guns?” Lucille asked.
“No,” said Betty. “One of the passengers had a gun and followed us off the train. He took a shot at Irene but he missed.”
“That was right before Belle and Irene ran into the barbershop,” said Francis. “Sidney was at lunch, so the shop was closed up, but Belle had her key.” Belle and Sidney, who ran the barbershop, were married.
“Does Sidney know about Belle’s involvement with all of this?” Leonard asked. Every woman, including Lucille, shook her head.
Decker was at the center of the crowd now, Amos at his side. He was looking around asking questions.
“We’ve got to do something,” Lucille pleaded with him. “Irene and Belle were just helping us. We can’t let them get hurt.”
Leonard looked at Francis and Betty. “How did you two manage to slip away?”
“We all had our wigs on,” said Betty. “Even Belle. She was wearing a different shade of blonde.”
Francis joined in, “And we were wearing long coats over our clothes so that people couldn’t see what we had on. All we had to do was get ahead of people for a minute, pull off our wigs and our coats, and then we could blend right in with the rest of the crowd.”
“Which is just what we did,” said Betty. “Our coats and wigs are together in an alleyway under a pile of rubbish. We’ll get them back later.”
“Even if anyone were to find them,” said Francis, “they’d never be able to trace them back to us.”
“Clever,” said Leonard, thinking hard. “So all we need to do is get Irene and Belle out of that store unseen, and they ought to be able to blend right in with everyone like you did.”
Francis, Betty, and Lucille all looked at each other. “That’s right,” said Lucille.
Leonard drew a breath. “All right then,” he said. “Leave it to me.” He pulled his gun off his holster and fired three shots straight into the air. The entire crowd turned to look at him. “They ran around back!” he shouted. It took everyone a moment for his words to sink in, and then they started to run.
* * *
