Programming note: Tomorrow, Saturday, please join me for the latest edition of my Serenade Radio weekend music show, Mark Steyn on the Town. The fun starts at 5pm British Summer Time - which is 6pm in Western Europe and 12 noon North American Eastern. You can listen from almost anywhere on the planet by clicking the button at top right here.

~Ahead of that, welcome to the seventy-third audio entertainment in our series Tales for Our Time. We are in our ninth season, and we've built a spectacular archive that runs the gamut from A to Z ...well, not quite, but certainly A to W - Jane Austen to P G Wodehouse.

The newest addition to our collection is our fourth adaptation by the author who launched our series of audio adventures, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In this weekend's short story, The Final Problem, Dr Watson is forced to consider: has Sherlock Holmes finally met his match?

"As you are aware, Watson, there is no one who knows the higher criminal world of London so well as I do. For years past I have continually been conscious of some power behind the malefactor, some deep organizing power which for ever stands in the way of the law, and throws its shield over the wrong-doer... For years I have endeavoured to break through the veil which shrouded it, and at last the time came when I seized my thread and followed it, until it led me, after a thousand cunning windings, to ex-Professor Moriarty...

"He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city..."

To hear Part One of The Final Problem by Arthur Conan Doyle, prefaced by my own introduction, please click here and log-in.

~We continue to receive praise for our last Tale, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Joe Cressotti, a First Week Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club, writes:

Thanks, Mark, for a great reading.

Veronica, a Steyn Clubber from Auckland, agrees:

Lovely reading of this very interesting book MS, thank you :)

Andy in Virginia says:

Just finished up the last chapter... Thanks again for this memorable story.

One more from Fraser, a Mark Steyn Club member in East Anglia:

In the Author's note Conrad refers to his intention to give the theme ' a sinister resonance, a tonality of its own, a continued vibration that....would hang in the air and dwell on the ear after the last note had been struck". I thought Mark Steyn's reading had great merit in that respect.

~We launched The Mark Steyn Club eight years ago, and I'm immensely heartened by all those SteynOnline supporters across the globe - from Fargo to Fiji, Vancouver to Vanuatu, Surrey to the Solomon Islands - who've signed up to be a part of it. As I said at the time, membership isn't for everyone, but it is a way of ensuring that all our content remains available for everyone - all my columns, audio output, video content, every movie feature and Song of the Week.

That said, we have introduced a few bonuses for our members - not locking up our regular content, which will always be free, but admitting members to a few experimental features, such as this series of audio adventures. In Tales for Our Time I revisit some classic fiction I've mentioned in books and columns over the years - old stories that nevertheless speak to our own age. Our first serialisation was The Tragedy of the Korosko by the aforementioned Arthur Conan Doyle; next came The Time Machine by H G Wells; and then The Secret Agent by the aforementioned Mr Conrad, and The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope. Two of those I've since updated in contemporary iterations. I always liked reading stories, and I did do a little of it professionally a zillion years ago. So, if it works, we may release them as audio books on CD or Audible a ways down the road. But for the moment they're an exclusive bonus for Mark Steyn Club members.

If you'd like to hear this Tale, all you need to do is join the Club - either for a full year or, if you suspect we're some fly-by-night shifty Canuck scamsters and you want to see how it goes, a mere experimental quarter. And, aside from Tales for Our Time, The Mark Steyn Club does come with other benefits:

~Exclusive Steyn Store member pricing on over 40 books, mugs, T-shirts, and other products;
~The opportunity to engage in live Clubland Q&A sessions with yours truly, such as Wednesday's;
~Transcript and audio versions of The Mark Steyn Show and our other video content;
~Our video series of classic poetry;
~Advance booking for my live appearances such as our annual Mark Steyn Cruise;
~Customised email alerts for new content in your areas of interest;
~and the chance to support our print, audio and video ventures as they wing their way around the planet.

To become a member of The Mark Steyn Club, please click here - and don't forget our gift membership.

One other benefit to membership is our Comment Club privileges. So, if you like or dislike this Tale for Our Time, or consider my reading of it a bust, then feel free to comment away below. I weigh in on the comment threads myself from time to time, but I regard it as principally your turf, to have at it as you so desire. And do join us tomorrow for Part Two of The Final Problem.