“I always mark mine; now let me see you do the trick with one of these pieces.”
Hertz availed himself of the regular mediumistic subterfuge “unfavorable conditions” explaining that it was only a trick and being exhibited as such. To this Diss Debar retorted:
“I rest my honor upon its all being done by Spiritual power when I do it.”
At this the court ordered her from the stand refusing to allow discussion along such lines. Later in the trial Hertz was recalled to the stand by Diss Debar’s counsel and asked if he could produce the trick with Mr. Marsh as an assistant. He replied that he “could and would.” From a newspaper account[60] we learn that excitement in the courtroom ran high while he proceeded with the trick. Diss Debar told Marsh to “mark the tablet.”
The conditions were not favorable to the performance of a sleight-of-hand trick. Mr. Marsh and Mr. Hertz were less than two feet apart and people crowded around so close that the magician scarcely had room to move, and yet he succeeded completely in deceiving Mr. Marsh. When Hertz handed the tablet to Mr. Marsh he calmly said:
“If you wish to tear a corner off the tablet so as to identify it, I have no objections.”
Mr. Marsh tore the corner off the tablet, nevertheless he was completely tricked, and he so admitted to the court.
Nothing could show more clearly the methods used by mediums than the following account, written by Hertz himself, of the means which he used in the demonstration described above. The letter was in response to one of mine in which I asked him to let me know the method he used as I thought it should be put in this record.
8 Hyde Park Mansions,
London, N. W.
July 16, 1923.
Dear Houdini: