The dead body after being held up to the mirror did indeed have a reflection, an infinite number of them as a matter of fact. The police were amused by the two-mirror illusion. The frantic scrabblings by the bedside were dismissed as the ravings of madness.

The cause of death was determined to be that of a heart attack brought on by stress. That’s how the story ended.

*

The infinite mirror trick is a lie. You know how it goes, you stand between two mirrors facing each other and you’re greeted by an infinite line of yous, disappearing into the horizon, but in truth mirrors don’t reflect 100 percent of light, so each repeated reflection is a little dimmer than before. So if you strain your eyes long enough, you can see your reflections disappear into blackness.