Originally appearing alongside - amongst others - F. Marion Crawford's '‘The Upper Berth’ in 1885 in the pages of 'The Broken Shaft: Tales of Mid-Ocean' that year's Unwin's Christmas Annual, Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Markheim' is the story of a murder and of the consequences of such as the titular character comes face to face with, in his reckoning, The Devil who confronts him with his dissolute and degenerating nature and presents him with the opportunity to continue, successfully, along his current path.
The version presented below was made for and aired on BBC Radio 4 in 1971 with Tom Watson as Markheim, Malcolm Hayes as The Stranger and Martin Heller as The Dealer. Adapted from the original by Tom Wright (who returned to the story three years later for a TV adaptation starring Derek Jacobi and Julian Glover and who would later contribute a script to the 'The Omega Factor') it's a rather fine and sensitively performed interpretation although it does omit one telling moment near the end that hints strongly at the true nature and intent of the Stranger.
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