The green in the brown shell

She drew one tray towards the front.

“This.”

Barnaby bent over it. The shell was brown, scarcely longer than his thumb, with a pale line running round its middle.

“That one?”

“Yes.”

He looked at the rest of the drawer. There were pink shells with frilled edges, white ones that seemed to have been folded, and a small dark pair joined so tightly that he could not see where one half ended. Miss Vokes had passed over all of them for something he might have mistaken for a pebble in a poor light.

“I thought you liked the remarkable ones.”

“I do. Turn your head a little towards the lamp.”

He did as she asked. A fine sheen appeared on the brown surface. It moved when he moved, a greenish light that had been invisible from the other side.

“Oh,” he said.

Miss Vokes looked pleased, but did not explain at once. She allowed him to shift back and find the brown again, then lean forward until the green returned. He performed the little movement twice, with the serious air of a man checking a hinge.

“Does it always do that?”

“When the light comes from there.”

“And you chose its place in the drawer for that reason.”

“I moved it three times.”

Barnaby straightened. He liked a person who would admit to moving something three times when once ought to have been sufficient.

An original extract from Night Round at the Fenwold Museum · about 1 minute to read.