The Indian Basket
This familiar deception is yet sufficiently thrilling to prove fascinating to the most blasé of spectators. With a little practice it can easily be worked at home, and the following hints will explain the performance.
The magician, dressed as Bluebeard, leads Fatima on the stage, and, during the course of a short conversation, discovers that she has been prying into matters which had better have been left alone. In a fit of passion he draws his sword and rushes upon her, whereupon Fatima falls to her knees, crying for mercy. Bluebeard is obdurate, but after many tears from his wife he consents that she shall be blindfolded, to prevent her being a witness of her own fate. He binds a black scarf across her eyes, but has barely finished, when she breaks away, and rushes from the stage.
Bluebeard pursues hotly, and in another moment returns dragging the blindfolded girl after him. He puts her into a wicker basket, fastens the lid, and with a savage grin, thrusts his sword through and through the basket, his victim shrieking at every stroke.
Having worked the spectators to a pitch of agonized excitement, the murderer throws down his sword, unfastens the lid of the basket, and stoops to gaze on his sanguinary work.
The basket is empty!
Staggering back with a look of horror, he suddenly perceives the “slaughtered” Fatima herself appearing from amongst the spectators, pointing at him accusingly!
The deception in the trick is twofold. Firstly, the basket is of special construction, and secondly, there are two Fatimas.
With regard to the basket the solution is shown in [Figs. 16] and [17]. The first illustrates the appearance of the basket when Fatima is thrust inside.
Fig. 16.—The Indian basket trick.
Fig. 17.—The Indian basket trick explained.
The lid, A, B, is plain, and hinged to the top at C, D. The back, E, G, F, J, is similarly hinged at G, J. The top, E, C, F, D, is double, having a duplicate, L, K, hinged at E, F.
Having placed Fatima in the basket, Bluebeard thrusts his sword through and through the wicker-work, carefully avoiding the spot where, as he knows, the girl is lying. At each stroke she screams lustily, as though the blade were piercing her body.
Then, deftly pushing down the back of the basket, E, G, F, J ([Fig. 17]), she rolls herself out upon it, drawing after her the false top, E, K, by doing which the original back is entirely replaced. She is now lying outside the basket, which is, of course, empty when opened by Bluebeard.
Now comes the question of the two Fatimas. The girl who is put into the basket is not the one who was blindfolded by Bluebeard. When Fatima rushed away pursued by her murderer her place was taken by another girl waiting behind the scenes similarly dressed and of the same height and figure. The bandage upon her eyes hid from the spectators any difference in features.
The substitute having been apparently slain by Bluebeard, the original Fatima slipped in at the back of the auditorium, slowly walked down amongst the spectators (who recognized her face) and confronted the assassin. In the confusion that naturally followed, the substitute managed to leave her place behind the basket and vanish from the stage.