Gaudy Night Trivia Quiz

Answer: Mary Stokes

Mary, waiting to go abroad for a delicate and dangerous operation and having not met Harriet since they went down, asked her former friend to come to the Gaudy. Harriet found it hard to relate to her. "Mary is a dear: as she always was ... but we have nothing to say to each other." Having introduced Harriet to the story setting, Mary fades out of the story unobtrusively.

Answer: Shrewsbury

These are all women's colleges, though Shrewsbury exists only in this fiction. Newnham is in Cambridge, not Oxford. Dorothy L Sayers herself went to Somerville in 1912.

Answer: A reunion with speeches, concerts and dinners

Mostly associated with the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, UK, Gaudy celebrations (from the Latin word "gaudete", to rejoice) normally take place during summer vacations, reuniting old students and staff for a variety of speeches, meals, concerts etc.

Answer: Archaeologist

Harriet found friends doing all these things at the Gaudy, but enjoyed talking with Phoebe about the latest dig that she was undertaking in Ithaca with her husband.

Answer: Miss Martin

Miss de Vine was a research fellow, and their very similar names allowed Harriet Vane to accidentally receive one of the poison pen letters at the Gaudy. Miss Stevens was the Bursar, and Miss Lydgate the slightly scatty English lecturer.

Answer: She wanted to write a monograph on LeFanu

Her own work being on schedule, Miss Vane had time to do some research on Sheridan Lefanu in the Bodleian Library- "not perhaps the ideal source for it... but Oxford is willing enough to believe the Bodleian the hub of the scholar's universe." Harriet also helped Miss Lydgate with her work "The History of Prosody" (which had been attacked by the poison pen writer) and prowled the corridors at odd hours of the night, trying to forestall disturbances which would reflect badly on the college.

Answer: Jukes

Padgett was the porter at the time of the story. Jukes had been there in Harriet's time and was easy to bribe. Mr Jenkyn was a proproctor, who patrolled the streets of Oxford to ensure students' good behaviour. Mr Pomfret was a student who became infatuated with Miss Vane.

Answer: Coming into college drunk

This catalogue of disasters having co-incided with an incident in college (thereby removing Miss Cattermole from suspicion of involvement), Harriet decided not to report her to the Dean for her due punishment. The pick-me-up sounds pretty lethal... perhaps that was punishment enough!

Answer: A suspended dummy with a knife through it

The dummy (which had been created from a pillow, dressed in an unknown dress and an academic gown belonging to Miss Pyke, and having a quotation in Greek pinned to it) seemed to implicate the Senior Common room. "I'm afraid we can't suspect Emily or any of the scouts of expressing their feelings in Virgilian hexameters...".

Answer: meringues

In his haste, Lord Peter's nephew knocked Harriet's meringues to the ground. He offered to pick them up "one by one, on my knees, saying mea culpa to every one of 'em..." and replaced them with meringues made in Christchurch kitchens. The duds were fed to the carp in Mercury, the fountain which dominates the centre of the Great Quad.

Answer: Annie

Although it was Carrie who woke Harriet, she had herself been awoken by Annie, who had apparently noticed the lighted room and a figure moving behind the curtain, at 1:30 a.m.

Answer: a red pawn

"I loved them," said Harriet "and you gave them to me."
They sound delightful: "a fully armed warrior, a prancing steed and a complete nest of ivory balls, ... a robed counsellor with long moustaches ... an elephant carrying a complete castleful of combatants."

Answer: A dog collar

After giving her a lesson in how to throw an attacker off-balance, Lord Peter admitted that the greatest risk was that of throttling. Seeing a leather and harness shop, he stopped to buy a studded leather collar, which would deflect both hands and a knife from Harriet's throat.
"The man was very much interested" he observed, "in my bull terrier bitch. Extrememly plucky animal, but a reckless and obstinate fighter..." The collar did indeed save Harriet's life at the end of the book.

Answer: Under the pile of coal

After the library had been daubed with graffiti (shortly before the official opening) the missing set of library keys was discovered in a roll of photographs.

Answer: Death 'twixt Wind and Water

"Murder by Degrees" does sound more appropriate to a mystery written in Oxford! The hero of "Death 'twixt Wind and Water", Wilfred, appeared to be able to suspect his girl friend on the strength of a dropped handkerchief. He was apparently, "a complete mutt" until Harriet took Lord Peter's advice and made him more believable, with a puritanical background to account for his morbid tendencies!