The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

THIRTY TWO M's Private Headquarters

In a dark parlor, M sat in a padded leather chair, his long, thin fingers laced together. All around him, the furnishings were deep crimson and burgundy, from the thick curtains on the wall to the Persian rug on the floor. He had dispensed with all pretense of his Fantom mask or false scars. His heavy brows drew together, furrowing his high forehead.

He sat near a gramophone recorder, which was operated by a lady recordist. She seemed pale and listless, without heart or hope. M paid no attention at all to her until she had finished adjusting the smooth, blank wax disk and placing the needle in its position.

"Ready, Professor?" she said, lowering her voice to a whisper. "Recording."

M began to speak and, with a faint scratching sound, the recorder needle began scraping a thin spiral of wax from the gramophone disc.

"Gentlemen. If you're hearing this, then every step leading up to it has gone as planned, even if you do not realize it. Yet."

Smiling coolly, Dorian Gray stepped from the shadows in the den to amble around his leather chair. "And I have been true to the goals set me, as well." He spoke in a dry voice, making sure the gramophone picked up his words, his irony. "Yes, it's me — Dorian. You know by now that I'm no loyal son of the empire."

He casually lifted an apple from a bowl of fruit on the mahogany table, set it back down with disinterest, then walked over to stand behind the high-backed leather chair where M sat.

"In fact, my loyalty to Mr. M comes in no small part from his possession of something I hold dear to my heart." From behind, Dorian looked down at the cadaverous leader. His eyes flashed, as if he could barely suppress an impulse to strangle the man. "Something I'll do anything to regain."

M leaned forward like a vulture, as if the audience listening to his recording could actually see him. "Everything so far has been misdirection." He smiled over at Sanderson Reed, who also stood in the room for the recording. "My bumbling bureaucrat assistant, Sanderson Reed, who so easily recruited Mr. Quatermain. The assassins in Kenya. Your whole mission, and the excuse I gave you. Venice. Even the assembly of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen."

He chuckled with a sound like witches' brooms rattling together. "There is no League! There never was. A few old paintings, an unused meeting room in the basement of the museum, and a dashing good story. It was just a ruse to get me closer to my real goals."

"You see, I want you. Each of you, even tired old Quatermain. I have no doubt he'll capture the bestial Mr. Hyde in Paris, where the others have so far failed. That doddering Monsieur Dupin has been blundering about for months in Paris, ascribing the murders in the Rue Morgue to a wild monkey!"

Realizing he had strayed from the point, M sat straighter in his chair; the leather upholstery creaked. Gray picked up the apple from the bowl after all and bit into it with a loud crunch. Sanderson Reed looked at him, offended by the suave man's attitude.

M, seeing that the gramophone disc was nearly full, the needle approaching the center of its recording surface, continued. "So, my avid listeners, the important question is — why? Why all this cloak and dagger, masks and mystery? And why did I select the group of you, in particular, instead of, say, Sexton Blake, or Robur the conqueror, or Frankenstein's monster?"

He grinned, spreading parchment lips to reveal a row of tiny white teeth. "Because in the war that is to come, I have already acquired many grand and innovative weapons from the most brilliant scientists of all nations of the world. However, I intend to wield the greatest weapon of all — the power of the League itself. And to that end, I set my wolf among you sheep. He will lead you far from green pastures."

"Growl," Gray said, then took another bite of his apple.