How Do You Solve a Circle
"Is there anything I can do to improve it?"
Guillermo MartÃnez, who gained a PhD in mathematical logic at the University of Buenos Aires, worked for two years in a postdoctoral position at the Mathematical Institute, Oxford. The Andrew Wiles Building may have made an impact on him, as the Penrose tiling at the entrance would exhibit both reflection symmetry and fivefold rotational symmetry. A circle came to mind.
"The Oxford Murders", published in 1993, was a whodunit. Agatha Christie was a renowned figure in this subgenre, and don't be surprised if the Argentinian looked up to the Devon native, who was the greatest exponent of the classical detective story. He set his story in Oxford, a small town in South East England. Mathematicians would visit this place, like they were on a scholarly pilgrim. They would make startling discoveries.
When Latin indiscretion could be kinder than English reserve
The story took place in the summer of 1993, when the narrator, who could be the author himself, saw the lifeless body of Mrs. Eagleton, her landlady. This was where he first met Arthur Seldon, whose works he admired. Everyone in the neighborhood knew she had cancer. Beth, her granddaughter, lived with her. She would inherit her modest fortune. Readers sensed a familiar path, as greed was a frequent motive in Christie's crime stories. But Martinez's tale took a different route.
The circle could be an enigma, which mathematicians tried to decipher. Seldon took the narrator to some parts of Oxford, which wouldn't be considered places of interest. Radcliffe Hospital was the setting for Dino Buzzati's "The Seven Floors". The Italian writer fainted after a lecture, where he was examined at the said hospital. One test after another brought him to the seven floors of the buildings, where he witnessed dying patients. One was screaming in pain, and he was no other than Seldon. This could be a coincidence, and Martinez didn't try too hard to analyze the situation. (If the author came from the Northern Hemisphere, then readers wouldn't sense the sensitive approach on such delicate matter.) And then there was Frank Kalman. He was another mathematician, who spent forty years of his life analyzing himself. He came close to his goal, but he regretted not finding a wife.
Readers would notice the circles in the cases. Seldon and the narrator find a marking on Mrs. Eagleton's neck. The next victim, a patient at Radcliffe, was believed to die from natural causes. But the nurse in duty saw a dot on his arm. The suspect read Seldon's works, and the esteemed mathematician thought a formula was established. The letter M, a heart above a line, the number eight. This is not Martinez's version of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson (or Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings). Oxford may be too small for some inhabitants, which could turn them into a cuckoo. Some would try reading backwards, while others would commit a crime.
