Murder by Reflection Read Free Page A

escutcheon and then to talk of similar cases where fine old American families had, quite casually, pursuing selfless archaeology, come upon their own ancestral roots far away in medieval Europe, so they could rightly style themselves the cousin of a French marquis or a German prince.
    â€œAs Saul, seeking his father’s asses, found a kingdom,” cut in Dr. Lang, the dry literary member of the group. The rest weren’t quite sure whether Dr. Lang, in bringing in that particular allusion, had not perhaps let the hollow-ground razor of satire inflict a slight cut. Certainly Miss Kesson was checked. Everyone was therefore quite pleased when, in the little pause which showed, like the epicenter of an earthquake, that there had been a subsurface jar, Mrs. Maligni broke in enthusiastically. Mrs. Maligni was not the most popular member of the group—far from it. But it was clear now that her un-English lack of restraint was just the right balm, thick and sweet, for their hostess’ half-alarmed feelings.
    â€œI don’t know a thing about all the details. But I do see it’s just right. It kind of brings out what one always knew was there—like looking up a reference and finding you had quoted correctly after all.” Everyone smiled, except Dr. Lang. “It puts the cap on it all.”
    â€œI think that is quite a happy way of describing a crest,” graciously conceded Miss Kesson, who felt that momentary liking we always have for anyone who has just extricated us from a slight awkwardness. Everyone smiled audibly—that physical amiability which, spreading so far as to part the lips, actually causes, in males, a chuckle. Mrs. Maligni felt that she was a success—a feeling to which, as she was unfamiliar with it, she yielded. “Dear Miss Ibis, do you think I might some day bring round my nephew to see your wonderful silver? Now that it’s properly”—she paused to get the proper word, and decided—“enhanced, I feel he really mustn’t miss such a wonderful experience.” She sensed that her audience regarded her as pushing; so she hurried on, “He’s so deeply interested in art and history.” Then, feeling that she had gone too far, she ended weakly, “Of course, I know, perhaps it would be too much trouble.”
    Irene Ibis was kind in the normal female way. That is to say, she was frightened of, and defensive with, her female friends; fond of them, really and of course; more, she needed them and they her, but that need is something like that which a rabbit’s lower and upper teeth have of each other—of something to grind against—a neat and necessary balance of resistances. And, besides that, the normal female kindness between women who feel themselves equals, she had the normal female kindness which women have, as naturally, toward anything or anyone who is not equal, who is “down.” Mrs. Maligni had begun by pretending that she was an equal—one who could make requests which couldn’t be refused, one who could stand up to the exacting pressures of balanced equality. She had ended by owning that she was not. Irene Ibis switched over, was switched over by her nature, from defensiveness to protectiveness.
    â€œWhy, Mrs. Maligni, of course you may.”
    She let her eye flicker round the other faces, feeling—she almost remembered the exact context—something like Ahasuerus when, to the surprise of his court, he extended his scepter to the intruding suppliant Esther.
    A week after, therefore, Mrs. Maligni presented herself at the Ibis home. Irene had been, right down in her mind, not at all unwilling to see the nephew. Of course if Gabrielle Maligni had asked in an offhand way she would have had to refuse. But when her maternal instinct made her able to feel a wish to be kind to the woman who was “not really, my dear, quite one of ourselves,” another aspect of that broad-belted instinct was