The Case of the Echoing Mirror (Part 2) The pressure in the luxury bathroom did not snap with a violent crash; it dissolved like sugar in boiling water. Suddenly, Detective Inspector Arthur Vance could breathe again. The cool, crisp air of the hotel room rushed into his lungs, carrying the sharp, medicinal scent of the peppermint his reflection had just crunched. His fingers, still wrapped tightly around the cross-hatch grip of his service revolver, felt stiff and impossibly heavy. In the oval glass, the other Vance casually dusted a microscopic speck of lint from his lapel. The silver revolver in his hand remained perfectly level, pointed directly where Vance's throat met his collarbone. "You always did take too long with your tea, Arthur," the reflection said. The voice didn’t travel through the glass. It drifted out from the porcelain bathtub behind Vance, hollow and wet, as if spoken through a long, metallic pipe. "The mints are getting stale. The ice is meltin...
