"Anderson, Kevin J - The League of Extraordinary Gentleman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Kevin J)

Quatermain groaned quietly. This meeting had grown worse with each new revelation. "Please, M, tell me this is Harker's wife with a sick note."

Her green eyes flashed at him with a surprisingly feral light." 'Sick' would be a mild understatement, sir. My husband's been dead for years. At the moment, I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

"Gentlemen, this is Mrs. Wilhelmina Harker," M said. "Please welcome her to our League."

"And you couldn't find a chemist with—" Quatermain began, remembering all the times and all the adventures where women had caused him trouble.

"With the right to vote? Alas, no," Mina said.

M was unruffled. He sucked on the end of his cigarette holder again. "In addition to her chemical abilities, Mina's… prior acquaintance with a reluctant team member may also be of use to us."

Mina grimaced slightly, as if she didn't look forward to meeting her "prior acquaintance" again.

"And that's it? Chemistry and an old friendship?" Quatermain raised his eyebrows. "Come on, I'm waiting to be impressed." Many lives would depend upon the abilities of the members of this team.

"Patience… is a virtue," Mina said, then added in a sultry, eerily hypnotic voice, "Are you virtuous?"

"The clock hands turn, gentlemen," said M, gathering all the dossiers. "As I said earlier, we have very little time. You have other members to recruit before you depart for Venice."

"Kicking us out, already?" the now greasepainted Skinner asked. "A moment ago it was all sherry and giggles."
SIX
London

Still uneasy in their partnership, Quatermain, Mina, Nemo, and Skinner emerged from the museum onto the street, where it was still raining.

The invisible man wore a long coat, slouching hat, dark pince-nez, and full white makeup on his exposed skin. He opened an umbrella to shelter himself from the downpour. "Care to snuggle close?" he asked Mina. "Heh."

"I'd rather get drenched, thank you." She lifted her chin and turned away from his greasepainted leer.

"Come now, you're not still upset about that little incident at Miss Rosa Coote's Correctional Academy for Wayward Gentlewomen, are you?"

Mina turned to him regarding his unreadable mask coolly. "That is only one of the many despicable things about you, Mr. Skinner. Getting girls pregnant by claiming to be the Holy Spirit—indeed! How am I to choose only one reason to avoid you?"

As they walked down the wet stone steps toward the street, Quatermain stopped in his tracks. Instead of a hansom cab, a strange vehicle waited for them at the curb, massive and six-wheeled with a brute engine under its expansive hood. "What in God's name is that?"

Mina Harker and the invisible man also looked surprised and puzzled, but Nemo simply strode forward. "It is mine."

"Good one, Nemo. It really helps when you're so bloody mysterious," Skinner said. "What is it?"

"The future, gentlemen. The future."

"I believe it is an unorthodox design of an automobile," Mina said. "I notice several fundamental similarities to the contraptions currently being marketed by Karl Benz in Germany and Henry Ford in America."

Nemo regarded this as somewhat of an affront. Although Karl Benz was indeed selling automobiles—and would probably become the most successful manufacturer of the vehicles within a year or two—Ford had yet to do more than build a prototype. If Ford didn't begin a marketing program soon, Nemo doubted the man's work would ever amount to anything.

The captain, a consummate designer and inventor in his own right, had researched the capabilities of every model in the world to date and found them all wanting, so he had created his own design. He was proud of the innovations his vehicle represented, but he did not intend to share them with other money-hungry industrialists.

Nemo stepped up to the side of the muscular automobile. Its steam exhaust vents and swirling lines were marked out in elegant Hindu style, functionality with a veneer of ornateness. Though spattered with the dirt and soot of London's streets, the metallic adornments showed gleaming gold, silver, and chrome over colorful alloy body plates. The vehicle's six wheels would allow it to drive overland as well as down the smoothest streets.