Programming note: As part of the Mark Steyn Club seventh birthday observances, I'll be launching a new weekly show on Serenade Radio this Saturday at 5pm UK time/12 noon North American Eastern. You can listen from anywhere in the world by clicking the button at top right here.
~Ahead of that, welcome to Part Fifteen of Agatha Christie's tale of sinister coup-plotters on the loose in London after the Great War: The Secret Adversary. Josh Passell, a First Weekend Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club from Massachusetts, writes:
When mere binging wouldn't do, it took the mother of all benders to catch up. And to have my questions (tantalus?) answered before they were asked! Fourteen episodes down, without a hangover.
It is the mother of all compliments to say that Mark embodies villains so brilliantly. A round table of conspirators, each with his own voice: the pompous German, the breathy Russian(?) Number One. But then, you've heard worse in courtrooms hither and yon. More yon soon to come.
That's very kind of you, Josh. During my time as one-third of a triple-act with Rob Long and Jonah Goldberg, I always used to get a big laugh doing my Bond-villain line: "I'm afraid you're growing rather tiresome, Mr Goldberg" - usually delivered while stroking an imaginary cat. But pulling off the entire Spectre board meeting is rather more demanding.
Nonetheless, we soldier on. So welcome to tonight's episode, in which our heroine wonders how deep the conspiracy goes:
"Perhaps the doctor's in it too," suggested Tuppence.
Julius shook his head.
"I don't think so. I took to him at once. No, I'm pretty sure Dr. Hall's all right."
"Hall, did you say?" asked Sir James. "That is curious—really very curious."
"Why?" demanded Tuppence.
"Because I happened to meet him this morning. I've known him slightly on and off for some years, and this morning I ran across him in the street. Staying at the Metropole, he told me." He turned to Julius. "Didn't he tell you he was coming up to town?"
Julius shook his head.
"Curious," mused Sir James.
So off they head to the Metropole, which stands at the corner of Northumberland Avenue and Whitehall Place. Because of its proximity to the seat of power, it's spent much of the last century and a quarter getting requisitioned in turbulent times for various top-security government agencies. The old Daily Express James Bond strip always used to depict it as MI6 headquarters, which is why they held the press beano to announce Skyfall there. Still, for the moment, it's back to being a five-star hotel, now called the Corinthia and owned by a Malta-based consortium of Dubai investors and a Libyan state entity.
Yes, I know: In today's London, that doesn't narrow it down much. However, in Tommy and Tuppence's day, it was still part of Gordon Hotels, founded by the late Frederick Gordon - "the Napoleon of the Hotel World".
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear me read Part Fifteen of The Secret Adversary simply by clicking here and logging-in. Earlier episodes can be found here.
On this seventh anniversary of The Mark Steyn Club, if you've a friend who's a fan of classic literature and you want to give him or her a present with a difference, we hope you'll consider a one-year gift membership in The Mark Steyn Club. The lucky recipient will enjoy full access to our back catalogue of audio adventures and video poems - Conrad and Conan Doyle, Orwell and Orczy, Kipling and Kafka, and all the rest - which should keep you going until the next variant arrives from Wuhan, or at least until the cancel crowd has had all the books banned. For more details, see here.
Through the hell of 2024, our nightly audio adventure goes on, so do join me right back here tomorrow for The Secret Adversary Part Sixteen, a few hours after the very first Serenade Radio edition of Mark Steyn on the Town.
