The Footsteps at the Lock by Ronald A. Knox

By the next afternoon the prints were dry and ready for inspection. Bredon, however, delayed his visit to Oxford until after teatime, to be more certain of finding his man in. He was punished for his delay; a prolonged block detained him at Carfax, and during its inch-by-inch progress he was briskly hailed from the pavement by Uncle Robert. All families keep an uncle or an aunt in Oxford; most families slink about Oxford with guilty consciences when they pay it a visit, because the Uncle or Aunt has not been informed. Uncle Robert's "What on earth brought you down here? " was distinctly tactless; Bredon had no desire to advertise his mission. In the end, he only got away by promising to dine with Uncle Robert in Salisbury Common-room that evening, after a warning telegram to Angela.

Nigel's digs were in that state of chaos which can only be achieved when rooms are being dismantled and refurnished simultaneously. All Oxford lodging-house-keepers cling to the illusion that they can let their rooms to undergraduates "furnished"; generations of undergraduates come in, and tactfully extrude the unwelcome ornaments. It need hardly be said that Nigel had made a particularly clean sweep of all the "things" which his landlady had expected him to harbour. Now, Nigel's darling monstrosities had been swept from the walls, Nigel's French novels lay in piles about the floor, Nigel's mauve curtains were folded, never again to look out from those windows; meanwhile the tide of redecoration was already beginning to flow in; The Soul's Awakening and The Monarch of the Glen stood ready to resume their immemorial places, and in that wilderness the aspidistra prepared to flourish anew. The outgoing tenant had a slight air of Marius sitting on the ruins of Carthage, and Bredon hastened to apologize for the untimeliness of his interruption.