The Body in the Transept Quotes

“I skimmed. The Rev’d Canon Jonathan Billings . . . wound to the head (I shuddered and passed over”
― Jeanne M. Dams, The Body in the Transept

“transept leading to the old cloister. The cloister itself, save for part of the old scriptorium and the boundary walls, had fallen to ruin centuries ago after the dissolution of the abbeys, leaving only a few moss-covered stumps of arches to bear witness to Henry VIII’s devastation.”
― Jeanne M. Dams, The Body in the Transept

“me we’re right back where we started. We”
― Jeanne M. Dams, The Body in the Transept

“pleased as a dog with two tails.”
― Jeanne M. Dams, The Body in the Transept

“Every single roundabout I come to is going to have five ways out of it, to Little Puddleby, and Upper Slaughter, and Something Parva,”
― Jeanne M. Dams, The Body in the Transept

“Aha!” I snapped my fingers, not realizing I had spoken aloud until I saw the glare on the face of the elderly passing clergyman. In his day—a very long time ago, that was—women did not go about getting sudden ideas in the Cathedral Close. It wasn’t done. He sniffed and turned his back.”
― Jeanne M. Dams, The Body in the Transept

“in Sherlock Holmes’s day, the Trichinopoly cigar ash helped only if one of the suspects smoked Trichinopoly cigars.”
― Jeanne M. Dams, The Body in the Transept

“the institution of afternoon tea is suffering in an England that grows more American every day,”
― Jeanne M. Dams, The Body in the Transept

“Mr. Wallingford, I noticed with amusement and some exasperation, was making the most of the situation. His shocked, mournful gaze as he took up the collection shook loose from the tourists a good deal of folding money. With the smallest bank note at five pounds these days, the take must have been considerable. How upset the dean would be if he realized the way the verger was using the tragedy! It was a little odd, come to think of it, that Mr. Wallingford was presiding. The main service of a Sunday was Mr. Swansworthy’s responsibility as head verger. But he was inclined to dyspepsia; perhaps he’d had too much Christmas. Certainly Wallingford was glorying in his importance. I watched him strut to the altar rail with the collection and was vividly reminded of the money changers in the temple.”
― Jeanne M. Dams, The Body in the Transept

“the communion solemnly moving. As I made my way back from the altar rail I reveled in the exalted sense of goodwill that one always hopes will last. It never does, of course.”
― Jeanne M. Dams, The Body in the Transept