Professor Moriarty: The Hound Of The D’urbervilles Read Online Free PDF

those blasted middle initials? – was a barrel-shaped fellow, sans moustache but with a fringe of tight black curls all the way round his face. He wore simple, expensive black clothes and a look of stern disapproval.
    The girls ignored him. I sensed he was on the point of fulminating.
    I didn’t need one of the Professor’s ‘background checks’ to get Drebber’s measure. He was one of those odd godly bods who get voluptuous pleasure from condemning the fleshly failings of others. As a Mormon, he could bag as many wives as he wanted – on-tap whores and unpaid skivvies corralled together. His right eye roamed around the room, on the scout for the eighth or ninth Mrs Drebber, while his left was fixed straight ahead at the Professor.
    With him came a shifty cove by the name of Brother Stangerson who kept quiet but paid attention.
    ‘Elder Drebber, I am Professor Moriarty. This is Colonel Sebastian Moran, late of the First Bangalore...’
    Drebber coughed, interrupting the niceties.
    ‘You’re who to see in this city if a Higher Law is called for?’
    Moriarty showed empty hands.
    ‘A man must die, and that’s the story,’ Drebber said. ‘He should have died in South Utah, years ago. He’s a murderer, plain and flat, and an abductor of women. Hauled out his six-gun and shot Bishop Dyer, in front of the whole town. A crime against God. Then fetched away Jane Withersteen, a good Mormon woman, and her adopted child, Little Fay. He threw down a mountain on his pursuers, crushing Elder Tull and many good Mormon men [2] . Took away gold that was rightful property of the Church, stole it right out of the ground. The Danite Band have been pursuing him ever since...’
    ‘The Danites are a cabal within the Church of Latter-day Saints,’ Moriarty explained.
    ‘God’s good right hand is what we are,’ insisted Drebber. ‘When the laws of men fail, the unworthy must be smitten, as if by lightning.’
    I got the drift. The Danites were cossacks, assassins and vigilantes wrapped up in a Bible name. Churches, like nations, need secret police forces to keep the faithful in line.
    ‘Who is this, ah, murderer and abductor?’ I asked.
    ‘His name, if such a fiend deserves a name, is Lassiter. Jim Lassiter.’
    This was clearly supposed to get a reaction. The Professor kept his own council. I admitted I’d never heard of the fellow.
    ‘Why, he’s the fastest gun in the South West. Around Cottonwoods, they said he struck like a serpent, drawing and discharging in one smooth, deadly motion. Men he killed were dead before they heard the sound of the shot. Lassiter could take a man’s eye out at three-hundred yards with a pistol.’
    That’s a fairy story. Take it from someone who knows shooting. A side arm is handy for close work, as when, for example, a tiger has her talons in your tit. With anything further away than a dozen yards, you might as well throw the gun as fire it.
    I kept my scepticism to myself. The customer is always right, even in the murder business.
    ‘This Lassiter,’ I ventured. ‘Where might he be found?’
    ‘In this city,’ Drebber decreed. ‘We are here, ah, on the business of the Church. The Danites have many enemies, and each of us knows them all. I was half expecting to come across another such pestilence, a cur named Jefferson Hope who need not concern you, but it was Lassiter I happened upon, walking in your Ly-cester Square on Sunday afternoon. I saw the Withersteen woman first, then the girl, chattering for hot chestnuts. I knew the apostate for who she was. She has been thrice condemned and outcast...’
    ‘You said she was abducted,’ put in the Professor. ‘Now you imply she is with Lassiter of her own will?’
    ‘He’s a Devil of persuasion, to make a woman refuse an Elder of the Church and run off with a damned Gentile. She has no mind of her own, like all women, and cannot fully be blamed for her sins...’
    If Drebber had a horde of wives around the house and still believed