Murder by Reflection Read Online Free Page A

She was amused, and a little shocked; and she decided that she certainly would not “repeat her lesson” the next day.
    Next morning, though, she reread the passage and laughed a little. First a common interest and then a private joke: it is a well-worn path, perhaps the commonest of the short ones, to intimacy. She recognized that; for, in personal relationships, she was far from a fool, and, like many persons who have lived by themselves, carrying on a campaign to get the world to accept them at their own valuation, she knew herself pretty shrewdly. She knew she had to sell herself, not in the melodramatic sense but in the business way; she had to persuade people to give a slightly higher price (not much, but still something more) than they would give if the goods were not neatly made up to look expensive—hence the Ibis blazonry.
    When Mr. Signorli called, therefore, she was amused, cheerful, honestly pleased to see him, and entertained by the risqué jest nicely glossed in a Helleno-Egyptian patina. And behind the cheerfulness she was vigilant. The step beyond the private joke, she knew, is the personal confidence. She certainly did not know this learned but still very young man well enough for that, and she was not quite certain that she yet wanted to. She wanted, then, to see whether he would hurry on to the Herodotus. No; he didn’t. He seemed grave—not at all sad, but seriously interested in what he was discussing, so seriously that he seemed to be treating her as a male colleague. The subject was a small Battersea-enamel snuffbox. Was he treating her as a taken-for-granted equal, or could it be that he was just a careful salesman carefully building up a connection? The thought relieved the other pressure—the feeling that he might be treating her with a shadow less of respect than he owed—but it was, she found, the less pleasant of the two. He had brought the box out of his pocket almost as soon as he sat down, un-wrapped it from its soft paper, and put it on the tea-table in front of her.
    â€œSilver, after all,” he said, “is the ‘setting’ par excellence. Diamonds should, and used always, be held not by gold but by silver claws. This piece is so distinguished just for that reason. See the way the box itself is mainly gold-plated, but the frame around the enamel—a charming picture of a moonlight effect (I’ve never seen another) is silver, taking up the silvery effects in the jewel-like enamels themselves.”
    She looked at it. It was a lovely object, and perhaps her taste could be extended beyond silver pure and simple, and the furniture necessary as a backing. Her purse would not refuse to stretch. But there her suspicions stirred again. She was thinking of the bringer far more than of the brought on which her eyes rested.
    â€œI can see you are taking it in. And, if you will forgive me, that is a true reaction. So many people say ‘How lovely’ at once. They cannot really see a new beauty so quickly. The tongue disturbs the eye.”
    She went on gazing, wondering what to say, whether to say, “I’m sure it’s worth a small fortune, and I could never afford to have a piece like that. I’ll have to keep what I have to spare to add to what I know.”
    As she changed the sentence about to get it definite but not crude, he spoke again: “I’d like to leave it with you. I’m sorry it has to be only a loan; but I can, if you will, let it rest in this house for a fortnight so that you may get to know it. It will repay the keeping. It belongs to a friend of mine. He does not want to part with it or I would have tried to purchase it long ago.” This was the only part of his description in which the decoration exceeded the substructure of truth. “But he lets me take it out now and then as we take out books from a library.”
    She thought that would be a good opening for returning the Herodotus. It was ready