Quotes

Neville Grimbold: My uncle gave everybody notice about once a month, to keep them up to the mark. But it never came to anything. He was like the Queen of Hearts in Alice—he never executed nobody, you know. (385)

"Absolutely Elsewhere"

The page numbers are from "Lord Peter" published by Harper & Row. The excerpts are copyrighted 1972 by Harper & Row.

375 ~ don't go all Eddington on me
Arthur Eddington (1882-1944): a scientist who made important contributions to the theory of general relativity. Among other discoveries, his photographs of the sun during a total eclipse gave the first confirmation of Einstein's theory that gravity will bend the path of light when it passes near a massive star.

Fitzgerald contractions and coefficients of spherical curvature
References to the theory of relativity

385 ~ He's like the Queen of Hearts in Alice -- he never executed nobody, you know
A reference to "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll. The Queen would call for people's executions, but none were ever carried out.