Murder by Reflection Read Free Page B

glad of the possibility of seeing a little further into the Italian woman’s family. She found that she had wanted to see this nephew for some little while. She had several times heard his aunt talking of him, how intelligent, cultured, handsome he was. She had overheard the remarks because to whomsoever Mrs. Maligni made them they were received in a silence which threw them into relief. Moreover, Mrs. Maligni had not a soft voice and her use of polysyllabic superlatives was certainly “Low Latin.” Yet there is no smoke without fire, and now she was to see the lambent young spark.
    Her first impression was one of agreeable surprise. His aunt was properly bashful; the nephew, on the other hand, was unexpectedly, quietly at his ease. “You might almost say,” she said to herself, “that he had savoir-faire .” Certainly, whether or not he knew how to carry things off in general, in that particular environment he was well able to take a courteous lead. His knowledge gave him plenty of openings. Without seeming to lecture—indeed, mainly by asking her questions, and seeming to defer to her information—he kept on adding to her knowledge. She was interested in all that he could tell her of silver and its styles: of how this piece was a particular joy to see, for he suspected (though, of course, he was only an amateur) that it must be an early Jacobean piece, originally from Oxford, which had escaped the great melting down when the University lost its “plate” and gained its title of the City of Lost Causes, by backing Charles I to the extent of all its silver; that piece—yes, it was really Elizabethan—a little treasure. Well, he was glad to see the ibis on it—a properly “exemplified coat” instead of that vulgar piece of eighteenth-century stage-scenery emblazoning which some ignoramus had stuck on the other side of it. He called the Ibis addition “a rightful completion of an otherwise unfinished work of art.”
    Irene’s worst doubt was laid: she wasn’t marring beauty by linking her new-found “tree” with these silver fruits of the past. The nephew could not have said anything more welcome, more quintessentially tactful. Her heart opened, warmed.
    And when he went on to tell her all about her name, linking her not merely with medievalism but with mysterious ancient Egypt—told her of Thoth, the ibis bird-god of wisdom—she was thrilled, sat listening to him as a student to a teacher. Therefore when he became less formal, more light, hinted at a queer, humorous passage in Herodotus—“so interesting, but really he couldn’t repeat it; not, at least, on a first visit, which anyhow he had prolonged unconscionably long, for when again could one hope to be with such loveliness so appreciated”—she felt that she would like to hear more, that he might mean the silver and her care of it, but might—at least as an overtone—mean …?
    Well, her mind was made up on one point; she asked him to call again. When he was gone she recalled that he was undoubtedly good-looking; a little more sensitive than she had expected, and not so dark. Lombards, she remembered from a school lesson, are often not dark, sometimes quite light. His hair was auburn. What else had she read about Lombards? That they were very able businessmen sometimes—that was it Men who made admirable secretaries.

Chapter III
    She found that she was looking forward to the next visit. And when it arrived it began with a pleasant surprise. Mr. Signorli—that was the nephew’s not unpleasing name—said that he was so sorry, his aunt could not come, she was indisposed. She was so very sorry she was prevented. Miss Ibis was not. Mr. Signorli hoped she would forgive his coming alone. Miss Ibis said, with the proper accent which conveys that it is only an assurance of courtesy, that she would have been very sorry if he had stayed away.