Expanded Universe

FOREWORD

While I was failing at World - Saving, I was beginning to achieve my second objective: to spread out, not limit myself to pulp science fiction. THEY DO IT WITH MIRRORS was my first attempt in the crime - mystery field, and from it I learned three things: a) who - dunnits are fairly easy to write and easy to sell; b) I was no threat to Raymond Chandler or Rex Stout as the genre didn't interest me that much; and c) Crime Does Not Pay - Enough (the motto of the Mystery Writers of America).

It may amuse you to know that this story was considered to be (in 1945) too risquй; the magazine editor laundered it before publication. You are seeing the original "dirty" version; try to find in it anything at all that could bring a blush to the cheek of your maiden aunt.

In late 1945 this magic mirror existed in a bar at (as I recall) the corner of Hollywood and Gower Gulch; the rest is fiction.

"Anything you get free costs more than

worth - but you don't find it out until later."

- Bernardo de la Paz