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Thanks, Quisling - that makes the answer I came up with seem perfect,valid, correct etc! (My solution involved only the crossword aspects - male, borders - I didn't do any literary investigating.)

I’ve got it now, also using cryptic methods. I had a crossing word wrong.

Likewise, Malone! But I imagine this may be the reference:

https://allpoetry.com/The-Jackdaw-Of-Rheims

I assumed this must be Oscar Wilde who famously had a ring stolen in Oxford, but no, the thief here, it seems, was a jackdaw…

Thanks, Quisling, that now rings a (very faint and distant) bell!

We crossed, Quisling, I was reading that exact page.

Fools seldom differ, Jono 😉

RHEIMS
'The Jackdaw of Rheims' in The Ingoldsby Legends