The Gaslight Bandits

St. Antoni – The Forbidden Colony - Book 3

––––––––

Gail Daley

COPYRIGHT © 2020 BY Gail Daley dba Gail Daley's Fine Art

The Gaslight Bandits | St. Antoni—The Forbidden Colony- book 3 Gail Daley—1st ed. Copyright © Cover Art Copyright © 2020

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

E-book ISBN: 9781393012320

Print ISBN- 9781393649809

ASIN  B08RWFVFVB

HB ISBN: 978-1-68564-019-4

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to any persons living or dead is unintentional and accidental. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed "Attention: Permissions Coordinator," at the address below.

Gail Daley

5688 E Sussex Way

Fresno, CA 93727

www.gaildaley.com

Ordering Information: Quantity sales (sales of 100 or more books). Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the "Bulk Sales Department" at the address above.

––––––––

Gail's Other Books

SPACE COLONY JOURNALS

Options of Survival

Destiny Rising

Tomorrows Legacy

The Interstellar Jewel Heist

The Designer People

Alien Trails

Quantum Light

Confederation Planets & People

PORTAL WORLD TALES

Portal World Notes

Rulari—Land of Myth & Magic

ST. ANTONI – THE FORBIDDEN COLONY

Warriors of St. Antoni

The Enforcers

The Gaslight Bandits

The Portal Lawman

Cradle of Fire

The Clone Initiative

THE OUTLAW COLONIES

Game Theory*

Heirs of Avalon*

Apex Predator*

Babylon Shattered*

Cloned Ambition*

MAGI OF RULARI

Spell of The Magi

Magi Storm

Paladin

NON-FICTION

The Complete Modern Artist’s Handbook

PAMPHLETS

Introduction to The Internet #1

The Hard Stuff – Handbook #2

Art Show Basics – Handbook #3

Framing on a Budget – Handbook #4

Are You Making Money? – Handbook #5

For writers Only – Handbook #6*

*Working Title. Release dates TBA

About This Book

A fast-paced Sci-Fi novel of adventure, mystery, and romance on the forbidden colony of St. Antoni.

“Mix a Shoot’Em Up Western with Science Fiction, Victorian Steampunk, then add a dash of mystery and romance...”

After their crazy father killed their mother, sixteen-year-old Francis Dominique became solely responsible for the welfare of her two young sisters. The colony of St. Antoni is a rough place; a woman needs to be smart and tough enough to protect, feed and clothe herself or find a man to do it for her. Francis opted for the first choice, and went to work for the Enforcers, St. Antoni's elite law enforcement bureau. She tries desperately to keep her mind on her work and not dream about her boss, the handsome, devil-may-care Hercule Jones.

When she is drafted into taking part in an investigation, she finds herself embroiled up to her neck trying to identify the outlaws robbing the trains connecting St. Antoni's City States. Then the investigation turns dangerous and personal problems begin piling up. Her father escapes from the Asylum for the criminally insane, and a lawyer with a custody writ arrives intending to drag her and her sisters to Copper City to live with grandparents who have ignored their existence until now. Can Francis keep her sisters safe and catch the outlaws without being killed herself?

Table of Contents

Gail's Other Books

About This Book

Born Upon The Tide

A Gypsy's Ribbon

The Indigo Moor

Under The Jeweled Sky

The Moonlight Ribbon

With Stealthy Tread

Born To Talk Back

Daddy Was a Mean Man

Flesh, Blood and Bone

Whiffling Through The Wood

Still, Still The Shadows Stay

Take My Hand

The Road Less Traveled

A Bright Red Rose

By Hook or by Crook

A Disreputable Pair

All The Ways of Dusty Death

The Stars At Night

Hide & Seek

A Father's Love

Thus, It Is Proven

Carousel of Life

About The Author

A Note From Gail

Bonus Excerpt: Magi Storm

About Magi Storm

From Jacite With Love

A Stubborn Woman

Man With A Mission

Born Upon The Tide

FRANCIS DOMINIQUE looked up from her typewriter and glanced out the large windows in front of the reception room and sighed. The view was uninviting; winter's steel grey skies were still dripping rain. It was the first of December and the Christmas season looked like it was coming in wet. This would be her and her sisters first Christmas without their mother, who had been murdered earlier in the year. This news had come with the devastating news their father, instead of being the mild-mannered bookkeeper they had thought him, had in realty been a killer for hire who murdered prostitutes for fun on the side. He was currently residing in an asylum for the criminally insane on the outskirts of Junction City.

Francis was now the sole support of her two younger sisters, thirteen-year old Hetty and ten-year old Sydney. They had an older sister Lila, but instead of assuming her place as the new head of the family when tragedy struck, she spent her time in her room moping over her lost marriage chances.

Francis survived her summer baptism of fire and emerged from her trials with a steel spine. With her parents gone and her older sister a useless burden, she had shouldered the responsibility of ensuring Hetty and Sydney had food, clothing, a place to live and were able to attend school.

Her friend Chloe, an Enforcer who was engaged to the chief Enforcer here in Junction City had suggested Francis go to work in the Enforcer's office. Francis had applied and Caleb Jones had hired her as a secretary and part-time investigator for the Junction City Bureau of Law Enforcement.

Unlike her older sister Lila, Francis was no raving beauty; she was a tall, slender woman in her late teens, with her dark hair drawn up in a neat braid coiled on the top of her head. Her cool blue eyes looked out at the world from an oval, high-cheek boned face with a firm lipped mouth and obstinate jaw.

She was alone in the reception area this morning. The building had once housed a general mercantile store with living quarters in the upper story and stables out back. When Caleb Jones opened the new Enforcement office, he had retained the upstairs as living quarters, now occupied by himself and his cousin Hercule Jones, another Enforcer.

The downstairs store had been divided into a reception area, offices, a storage room and a kitchen with an attached mudroom. As he was every morning, Caleb was out back checking on his tricorns and dogs.

The tricorns everyone used for riding, pulling carriages, and plowing were native to St. Antoni. When the first colonists snuck through the illegal portal to the planet, they immediately realized some form of transportation was needed. Tricorns, like the horses of earth they resembled, were herd animals and readily adapted to being domesticated. Two sharp horns jutted out on their foreheads above their eyes, with a shorter, blunt horn on the nose just above their nostrils. St. Antonians used them for the same things earthly horses had been used for until they were replaced by vehicles with motorized engines.

When Caleb opened the office, he had expanded the original four stall stable to make room for the three riding animals owned by the Enforcers office and the privately-owned beasts ridden by Francis, Chloe, Caleb and his cousin Hercule. Included in the expansion had been a four-cubicle kennel run for the large dogs Caleb had brought with him from Copper City.

Caleb's cousin Hercule, who occupied the spare upstairs bedroom, was in the kitchen eating breakfast. There was a marked family resemblance between the Jones cousins; both men were about medium height and had dark, near black hair and grey eyes. Most people meeting Caleb were intimidated. He had earned his reputation as a tough Enforcer who would bring outlaws in alive if they didn't fight him, or dead if they did. He didn't particularly care which, and it showed.

While her boss didn't intimidate her, Francis couldn't imagine falling in love with him the way her friend Chloe had. Hercule was another matter. It would be all too easy to allow herself to dream about his easy-going smile being turned on her as something other than a friend and colleague. Hercule was tall and slender, with the olive skin, wedge-shaped face and sharply cut features of the Jones men. On his cousin, the Jones features looked harsh and forbidding, probably due to the scar on one side of his face, but on Hercule, they gave character to an otherwise too handsome visage. Despite his resemblance to Caleb, she found it impossible to be intimidated by a man who had dimples when he smiled. He's older than you and probably considers you a little girl, she reminded herself sternly.

Francis had ridden over  to work this morning with Chloe. When Francis had come inside, Chloe had stayed in the stable and kennel area to check on Athena, the bitch Caleb had assigned to her in the spring. Athena usually accompanied Francis and Chloe back and forth from the house where they lived, but she was on hiatus from duty as she was expected to whelp soon.

The Jones Bred dogs were highly prized on St. Antoni. They were Hybrids of several earth breeds smuggled through the Gateway by Portal Runners. The dogs were superb trackers and guard dogs. Rottweiler ancestry not only gave them guarding instincts, but their massive size, heavy bone structure and powerful jaws. A little Bloodhound had provided the super sensitive noses that gave them their wonderful tracking ability. From their Border Collie genes came intelligence and a thick coat of multi-colored fur.

Dogs weren't the only items smuggled through the Gateway. Despite the threat of jail time and heavy fines for violating the Portal Settlement Acts, Portal Runners brought in a steady trickle of items (mostly medicines, diagrams for machines, books, plant cuttings or seeds, and a few specialty items hard to make on St. Antoni). These things were highly valued on a planet without its own technological resources. Usually a runner also brought in a couple of new colonists desperate to escape Earth for a variety of reasons.

Having been born on St. Antoni, Francis didn't find the mixture of technologies strange. The first settlers on St. Antoni had the good fortune to land on a planet closely resembling earth in the Pleistocene Epoch and set out to create their own society, unfettered by restraints imposed by governments of earth. The constellations overhead might be new and strange to Terran eyes, but St. Antoni's buttery yellow sun looked down on blue seas, lush, grass covered prairies, dense forests, high snowy mountains, and hot dry deserts. Large rivers and small streams threaded the continents. Three closely connected moons orbited the planet and regulated its tides. Plants, animals and the fish in the oceans were genetically close enough to those of earth to support human life. With icy polar regions and enough of a tilt to provide seasonal changes, St. Antoni's temperature range made humans feel quite at home.

Of course there were drawbacks to being completely free from Earth's influence: when the first colonists arrived, they were dropped barehanded into a primaeval world. There were no factories and no power to run them, no huge farms to grow and distribute food or machines to assist in building homes and towns.

It took several hundred years for St. Antoni's new settlers to develop into seven City States with loosely connected governments. They now had paddle boats and trains that ran on steam. The more affluent had home generators providing stoves, refrigerators and lights, all powered by steam.

Francis looked out at the steady drizzle of rain coming down and made a face. She was tired of winter. Junction City was low enough in elevation for it not to snow often, but during the winter months when the mountains and foothills were covered in snow, the Delta was a sodden mess. She had been hoping to take Hetty and Sydney up into the mountains to enjoy the snow this weekend, but the rain would make travel impossible.

Thanks to the seemingly never-ending weeks of winter rain, the street in front of the office was a quagmire. The planet of St. Antoni didn't yet have the technology to create asphalt to pave its roadways, so the winter rains made mud out of the normally hardpacked earth covering the street. The Enforcer office had been built high enough off the ground not to be submerged by ankle deep water, but the stable area behind it wasn't. Last month Francis had helped to sandbag the stables and kennel areas to protect them from being flooded.

Above the stable was a large loft for storing hay and a two-bedroom apartment where Bill Jenkins the stableman and George Carmody the cook shared bachelor quarters.

A wooden boardwalk stretched along the front of each storefront lining the street. Each building was separated by an alley wide enough to drive a wagon through it. Across the street it was the same. Most of the buildings were half timbered, with river stones making up the lower portion of the ground floor.

As Francis watched through the glass windows covering the walls of the reception area, a closed carriage with an umbrella hood over the driver came to a sliding halt in front of the hitching rail. The driver of the carriage jumped down from the box, splashing dirty water up to the tops of his leather boots. He opened the carriage door and let down the steps to allow a large woman to descend. She was dressed in an oiled leather overcoat coming to her knees and a wide brimmed hat to keep the rain off her greying hair. She wore dark grey trousers tucked into knee high boots.

The driver took her arm so she wouldn't slip in the slick mud, and assisted her to the boardwalk. Once she was safely out of the mud, he returned to the carriage.

"Thank you, Michel," she told him. "I see a livery stable down the street. You can take the carriage there and wait for me out of this rain."

He tipped his hat and drove off.

Francis realized the woman intended to enter the office, and quickly got up to open the door for her.

"Good morning, I'm Francis," she told her visitor. "Why don't you let me hang up your coat and hat so they can dry off? There's coffee over there, please help yourself to it," she gestured to a side table against the wall holding cups, saucers and light brown cubes of sweetener made from a root closely related to earthly sugar beets. The pot itself was sitting on top of the Bluestone stove used to heat the room.

Shed of her enveloping coat and hat, the woman facing Francis was still large. Francis herself was tall, but this woman made her feel like a dwarf.

Francis hung the woman's dripping hat and coat on the coatrack and turned back to her.

"How can I help you, Ma'am?" she waited for the woman to introduce herself.

"My name is Jones," the woman said. "Hortense Jones. Where are my nephews?"

"Won't you sit down, Mrs. Jones?" Francis asked. "Caleb is out in the stables checking on one of the dogs. I believe Hercule is still eating breakfast in the kitchen. I'll let them know you are here."

"No need for that, I'm here. How are you Aunt Hortense?" Hercule set his coffee cup down on Francis' desk so he could give Hortense a welcoming hug.

"Better for seeing you, boy," his aunt said, returning the hug with enthusiasm. "There are so few of us left, it's hard not being together as a family, especially at Christmas."

A shadow crossed Hercule's face. "I know," he said soberly. "But you know why the decision to spread the family out was made. Are you and Cousin Lucille still safe where you are?"

"That's something I came to talk to you and Caleb about," she said. "and to meet my soon to be niece."

"Athena and the puppies will need to be indoors in this weather," Chloe argued, as she and Caleb came back from the stables through the kitchen.

"It's a law enforcement office, Chloe," Caleb protested. "We can't interrogate prisoners with puppies running around underfoot."

"We won't be interrogating them here; we haven't got an interrogation room," Chloe retorted. "We will be using the Sheriff's office and jail across the street."

"Caleb!" Hercule called. "Come and see who's here!"

"Aunt Hortense!" Caleb exclaimed. He too came to give his aunt a welcoming hug, his usually saturnine expression softening in a smile of welcome.

"Aunt Hortense it's good to see you. I have someone I want you to meet," He said, drawing Chloe forward,

Chloe was easily the shortest person in the room. She had a well-rounded if diminutive figure, a creamy complexion, and large dark eyes in a heart shaped face. She looked like the proverbial girl next door, which she wasn't. A highly trained assassin, she could be as deadly as a viper and meaner than a Dire Bear in a fight, but at the same time soft and tender with those she loved.

"How do you do, Mrs. Jones," she said, coming forward to shake hands.

"Oh, please," Hortense said, "you must call me Aunt Hortense, the way the boys do."

"Thank you, Aunt Hortense," Chloe smiled at her.

"Where are you staying?" Caleb asked.

"I have a nice suite at the Royal Arms," his aunt said. "You must all come and eat dinner with me sometime this week."

"And you must all come to Sunday dinner with us. Giselle will be delighted to have you join us," Chloe said.

"Is Giselle your mother?" inquired Hortense.

"She is my Godmother," Chloe replied. "My mother died several years ago."

"You said you had a problem you wanted to discuss," Hercule said. "Why don't we go upstairs to the sitting room so we can be private?"

Hortense nodded. "An excellent idea." When Chloe would have hung back, she said, "You will be a part of this family as well, my dear. Please join us."

Francis grinned when Chloe made a rueful face at her over her shoulder. Meeting the in-laws could be a trying experience.

Upstairs, Hortense waited until they were all seated before taking a folded paper out of her bag and handing it to Caleb who was closest.

"I've had a letter from Ezekiel," she said. "He thinks it is time to move the Hoard out of Smith territory. There have been riders in the area, obviously looking for a place where it could be hidden."

Caleb's eyebrows rose. The Hoard was a nickname the family used to describe the considerable wealth accumulated over the years. On St. Antoni, gold, silver and gemstones were used as currency. Money was measured by weight. Smaller amounts were chips of gold, silver or copper about the size of an earthly quarter. Larger amounts were measured in pounds or ounces. Powerful families like the Jones Clan might keep some working capital in a bank, but liked to retain control of any large amounts. More important to the family was the wealth of documents, maps and other items brought with them through the gate and accumulated during their reign of power in Copper City. The series of caves above the city had served them well as safe places to keep their treasures, but when they needed to get out of the territory in a hurry after they lost a clan war with the Smiths, there had been no time to collect it. Ezekiel Jones, Hortense's older brother had stayed behind to guard it.

Unlike Hortense whose looks plainly marked her as a Jones, he took after his mother, being blond haired, blue eyed with a round, pleasant face. It had been hoped he would be safe from the Smith Family who wouldn't immediately recognize him as a Jones.

"Where do you want to move it?" Hercule asked.

"I've spent the last two years, developing a plan to misdirect inquiries about its location. I've explored the area above Seventeen-Mile station. As you know, the settlement is a stop on the Sanguine River. There are caves up there where we can establish a homestead. Your cousin Sorbet and her husband Richard are going to set up there."

"What about the Dire Bears?" Chloe asked. "I've heard they den in those caves."

"Yes, they do. The bears will make an excellent deterrent to keep those Smith thieves away from there. Just in case it doesn't, we will have a second decoy site; I inherited property in the Delta as well. Ezekiel will move in there when he arrives. He is sure the Smiths have identified him as the guardian of our Hoard, so they will be suspicious when he takes up residence in the Delta House," she said.

Caleb snapped his fingers. "Hortense Dubarry!" he said. "Your mother's maiden name was Dubarry. We found a deed made out to a Hortense Dubarry in a drawer out at the house in the Delta, remember, Chloe?"

"Did you know your house was being used by various criminal enterprises?" Chloe asked.

Hortense shrugged. "That will stop once Ezekiel sets up residence there."

The zone known as the Delta of Junction City was an area where the three smaller rivers, the Sanguine, Thunderfalls Run and Whispering Stream joined to form the much larger Black River, Riverboats plied their trade by stopping in the small towns and settlements along the trade Highways of the three subsidiary rivers and along the mighty Black River to the sea.

"I can see the value in setting up decoy sites," Caleb said. "It's going to be dangerous for the family who will be living on those sites though."

Hortense nodded, "They know and agreed to do it anyway. The family is paying them extra compensation and they will take precautions."

"I see. May I ask where you are planning to put our family treasures?"

His aunt gave him a mischievous smile. "I also own a nice stone house in the Red Rock district of Junction City. It has a stone lined basement. Its watertight so it will do nicely as a safe room. I will be moving in next week."

"We can't ship our stuff directly here from Copper City. Caleb, Ezekiel and I are too well known to the Smith Clan," Hercule pointed out. "If the Smiths are still searching for it, they will be watching for shipments of large heavy chests and even if we employ an agent to do the shipping, he won't be safe from them."

Hortense nodded. "I know. Our Hoard will need to be packed out on tricorns and moved across to Azure territory. A day's journey from Azure City there is a Trading Post where the trains stop to fill the water tanks. From there you can load the hoard and ride the train to a similar stop outside Junction City. The Delta House is about half a day's ride from the Timberline water station. From there you bring the Hoard to my new house after dark."

While the meeting was going on upstairs, Francis checked the level in the coffee pot on the bluestone stove. It was almost empty and the heat from the stove was lower than it should be. She opened the door and looked inside. Sure enough, the stones had shrunk down to pebbles and the water level was too low. Using the measurements on the bluestone box, she carefully added the correct number of bluestones and just enough water for them to start steaming. Bluestones were finicky; they produced heat from the chemical reaction of the stones to water, but if the mixture was off, you might either get no heat at all or an explosion.

Picking up the coffee pot, she took it to the kitchen for a refill.

"We sure go through this fast in this weather," she told George, the cook who ruled the Enforcer's kitchen.

The bell over the door jingled, announcing they had another visitor.

"I'll get this," George told her, "you take care of whoever it is."

Francis blinked when she re-entered the reception area. The visitor was Councilman Gerald Fisher. He was dressed in a neatly pressed suit with a conservative tie. The suit was of good quality but not expensive. He didn't want to look too prosperous to his constituents. He was a medium built man, with soft white hands and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. He was also the chief suspect in the kidnapping of Francis' two younger sisters last spring. The ransom had demanded Caleb, Chloe and Hercule come unarmed to where the girls were held. All of them had known the reason for that particular type of ransom demand was to dispose of the three Enforcers. With Hetty and Sydney's lives at stake there had been no choice. They had gone to the meeting, but Francis and Henry had secretly followed them.

The kidnapping had failed, and Fisher's aide had been arrested. Unfortunately, the aide had been murdered by a sniper on the way to the courthouse, so they had no evidence that Fisher had planned the kidnapping to lure the three Enforces to the Delta House where they could be killed.

Suppressing her anger, Francis forced a welcoming smile to her face, "Good morning, Councilman," she said. "This is a terrible day to be out. I'm sorry there's no coffee, but the cook is just making more. How can I help you today?"

Fisher glared at her. "Where's your boss?" he barked. "I want to know what he's doing about these train robberies!"

"I'm sorry, Enforcer Jones is in a meeting just now. Why don't you take a seat and tell me about it?"

"Well, go interrupt him girl!" Fisher snapped. He did however take a chair, gesturing for the clerk who accompanied him to do the same.

The young man, whose name was Jared Blackman, was dressed in a neatly pressed suit having seen much wear. He had a pleasant, ordinary face which just now wore the earnest expression of a man who desperately wants to be helpful. His shaggy blond hair was still damp from the weather. He was good, she thought.

Francis looked at Blackman with no sign of recognition, even though she had been introduced to him several weeks ago when Hercule had brought him over from the Enforcer Office in Azure City.

"Councilman Fisher I know," she told Blackman pleasantly, "but I don't believe I caught your name."

He cast a sideways glance at Fisher, who nodded impatiently. "My name is Jared Blackman, ma'am. I'm a clerk in Mr. Fisher's office. I'm supposed to take notes when he speaks to Enforcer Jones."

Francis nodded and went upstairs. "I hate to interrupt your meeting Enforcer Jones, but Councilman Fisher is downstairs. He wants to speak to you personally. He brought along a clerk named Blackman to take notes."

Caleb stood up. "I'm sorry Aunt Hortense, but I need to take this. We'll discuss our ways and means later."

"I'd better warn George not to recognize Blackman," Hercule said, also rising.

A Gypsy's Ribbon

"COUNCILMAN FISHER," Caleb said as he descended the stairs. "Francis tells me you made a special trip down here to speak to me. Something about train robberies, I believe?"

"That's right," Fisher said. "I'm a busy man, Enforcer Jones. I don't appreciate being kept waiting. This is important."

"Of course. Why don't we step into my office." He turned and went into the room on the left without waiting for Fisher.

Fisher flushed a little at the discourtesy, but rose and followed him, turning to glare at his subordinate. "Well, come on Blackman! This is why I brought you."

Making a good show of embarrassed chagrin, Jared Blackman scurried after him.

Francis hid a grin. Hercule's new investigator was good. Having met him before, she knew Blackman's anxious puppy act was a ruse. This might be his first solo undercover assignment, but Hercule had told her he had a good track record for sniffing out evidence of criminal activity.

"What did Fisher want?" Chloe asked. She and Hortense had come down the stairs.

"It's about those train robberies." Francis said. "I guess he doesn't think Sheriff Melody can handle it."

"Well since the trains cross all the City states, he doesn't have jurisdiction," Chloe pointed out. "It's a job for the Enforcers."

"I just hope this nonsense doesn't interfere too much with our family business," Hortense said with a frown.

Chloe helped the older woman shrug into her coat and went with her to the door, followed by Francis. Out on the porch, Hortense put two fingers in her mouth and gave a shrill whistle. A few minutes later Michel drove the carriage out the livery stable door. When Hortense stepped down off the porch, she slid a little in the slick mud and had to catch herself on the hitching rail.

Michel hastily jumped down from the box, landing in a mud puddle, and splashing mud everywhere. "Why didn't you wait for me to help you?" he scolded. "You don't want to take another fall."

"I'm old, not crippled!" Hortense snapped, but Francis noticed she waited for Michel as he let down the steps and came to get her.

"Don't forget about dinner this Sunday," Chloe reminded her.

Hortense mounted the carriage steps and sat down heavily on the seat. "I won't," she said. "I'll expect you and Caleb and Hercule tomorrow for lunch."

"She's quite a character," Chloe said as she and Francis came back into the room.

"She seems nice," Francis said.

Chloe laughed. "Well, you weren't the one under inspection. She was friendly though."

"Why wouldn't she be?" Francis was indignant on Chloe's behalf. "Caleb is lucky to get you."

What else she might have said went unspoken when Caleb came out of his office with Fisher. Blackman trailed them like an anxious puppy. After Caleb showed them to the door, he turned to the waiting group.

"Let's all go into my office so we can be comfortable. You too Francis."

"We've got a manpower issue," he said. "Hercule and I will need to be gone for a couple of weeks on a family matter, and we need Investigators to look into these train robberies. It's sort of an undercover assignment; ride the train to Azure City and back. It's a four-day round trip, but making it will give us two chances to catch the outlaws. In Azure City you need to check in with the local Enforcer office and ask them to co-ordinate their actions with ours. At the same time I don't want to leave this office without an experienced Investigator, so I'm going to ask Henry if he will fill in until Hercule and I get back."

Hercule frowned. "I think Chloe should have backup on this assignment. I know you're competent," he told Chloe apologetically, "It's nothing against your ability but we don't know how many are in the train robbers crew."

Caleb smiled at Francis. "You've been learning investigative techniques. Are you up for a train ride?"

"Me?" she squeaked.

Chloe grinned at her. "Why not? At least we can be company for each other."

"I—" about to give an enthusiastic yes, she stopped. "I'd love to do it, but my sisters are too young to leave on their own, and Lila, well I'm not sure she's up to making sure they go to school and do their homework."