‘Seems a fitting place for a homicide’
The inspector was feeling meditative. The Sergeant was not.
‘It’s St Andrews sir, everyplace looks like a potential crime scene.’
(from the unpublished, and unremembered Nails for St Andrew’s Cross: An Oxford Noir Mystery)
Turning to the notes at the back he found this detail.
“Why Dante and Virgil, who have been circling always to the left, suddenly move off to the right remains a mystery; this will happen one other time in the inferno”
Perhaps, he thought, the passage to the left was blocked. Or—and this thought cheered him greatly—Virgil decided to stop for tea, and the cafe was on their right. (more fragments from Oxford Noir)
The inscription was more a stated preference than a condition of entry. In Oxford one got the visitors one deserved, not the visitors one hoped for. (further fragments from Oxford Noir)
“The librarian savoured the ephemeral calm. This year, like every other, the undergrads would be back after Easter break. The thought occurred that either the Warden was lying when he said he changed the locks again, or the undergraduates had a tunnel into College from outside the walls and the Porters just hadn’t found it yet.” (further fragments from Oxford Noir)
Pen, Book, Sword. 