The others nodded vigorously. Echlin’s eyes had lit up at his wife’s words, and he licked his lips as he nodded.
Miss Janey, school teacher, false-toothed, sour-faced, put in her part:
“And even worse than those—those creatures, is that Clio Landes! Worse, because at least those—those hussies”—she looked down, managed a blush, looked out of the corners of her eyes at the minister—“those hussies are at least openly what they are. While she—who knows how bad she really is?”
“I don’t know about her,” Adderly began, but his wife shut him up.
“I do!” she snapped. She was a large, mustached woman whose corsets made knobs and points in her shiny black dress. “Miss Janey is perfectly right. That woman is worse than the rest!”
“Is this Clio Landes person on your list?” I asked, not remembering it.
“No, brother, she is not,” the Reverend Dierks said regretfully. “But only because she is more subtle than the others. Corkscrew would indeed be better without her—a woman of obviously low moral standards, with no visible means of support, associating with our worst element.”
“I’m glad to have met you folks,” I said as I folded the list and put it in my pocket. “And I’m glad to know you’ll back me up.”
I edged toward the door, hoping to get away without much more talk. Not a chance. The Reverend Dierks followed me up.
“You will strike now, brother? You will carry God’s war immediately into blind tiger and brothel and gambling hell?”
The others were on their feet now, closing in.
“I’ll have to look things over first,” I stalled.