Programming note: Tomorrow, Wednesday, I'll be hosting another edition of our Clubland Q&A taking questions from Steyn Clubbers live around the planet at 3pm North American Eastern - which, for a couple of weeks as we spring into summer, is an hour earlier across the Atlantic: 7pm Greenwich Mean Time/8pm Central European.
~Thank you for your many kind comments on our late-winter Tale for Our Time. There are seventy-eight others in our extensive archive. The seventy-ninth, however, is our first venture into the work of Sax Rohmer: his Mohammedan caper from 1914, The Quest of the Sacred Slipper. Larry, a South Carolina Steyn Clubber, has been enjoying the pungent haze that hangs over the proceedings:
Poor Cavanagh - he's had more hashish shotgunned up his nose than a Woodstock attendee. I'm getting a contact buzz just listening to this tale. I'll bring cookies and see you tomorrow at lamp lowering.
You're out of luck tonight, Larry. In this latest episode, Cavanagh and the girl with the violet eyes abandon the perfumed metropolis for the bracing fresh air of (then) rural Kent:
A girl appeared with a tea tray, and for a moment I almost feared that the landlord was about to retire; but he lingered, whilst the girl distributed the things about the table, and Carneta asked casually, "Would there be time for me to photograph the Gate House before dark?"
"There might be time," was the reply, "but that's not the difficulty. Mr. Isaacs is the difficulty."
"Who is Mr. Isaacs?" I asked.
"He's the Jewish gentleman who bought the Gate House recently. Lots of money he's got and a big motor car. He's up and down to London almost every day in the week, but he won't let anybody take photographs of the house. I know several who've asked."
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear me read Part Nineteen of The Quest of the Sacred Slipper simply by clicking here and logging-in. Earlier episodes can be found here.
We're now five-sixths of the way through our ninth season of Tales for Our Time and have built up quite an archive. So, if you've a chum who's a fan of classic fiction in audio form, don't forget the perfect birthday present: a Mark Steyn Club gift membership.
Please join me tomorrow both for Clubland Q&A and for Part Twenty of The Quest of the Sacred Slipper.
