“Now, Sir” (to the person who first drew), “will you kindly press your hand flat against the glass. Thank you. Not a very clear impression, but I dare say it will be good enough. I have now only to discover the card bearing the same imprint, and I shall know that it was the one you drew.” (He picks it out from the exposed cards on the table.) “Here it is, I think, the —— of ——” (as the case may be).
The other two cards are then discovered after the same fashion. As the performer knows beforehand what they are, this will give him little trouble, but he will be wise, for the sake of effect, not to discover them too readily. For the same reason, great importance should ostensibly be attached to the thorough cleaning of the hand mirror before each new attempt, so as to get a clear impression.
The trick as above described can be worked with any pack of cards, but where those used are the performer’s own property, he can make it even more effective by marking the three cards to be freed in such a way as to be distinguishable (by himself only) by their backs. The drawers in this case are requested to press their hand against the back of the card, and the cards are spread face down upon the table, the performer apparently not knowing the nature of the card indicated to him until he has turned it up.
DIVINATION DOUBLY DIFFICULT
This trick, though it merely rests upon a combination of methods already familiar to the expert, may as a whole fairly claim to be a complete novelty. The mise en scène is so simple, and the room for deception apparently so small, that to the uninitiated it seems like a genuine miracle. Unlike most card tricks, it is even better adapted to the stage than to the drawing-room.
The effect of the trick, baldly stated, is that the performer divines the nature of nine cards, selected apparently quite haphazard, and then picks out the corresponding cards from another pack, freely shuffled and covered by a handkerchief.
The requirements for the trick consist of two packs of cards, and an envelope with adhesive flap, of such a size as to accommodate one of them. One of the two packs is a “forcing” pack, consisting of three cards only, each seventeen times repeated. The cards of each kind are however not grouped all together, as is usually the case, but are arranged after the manner explained in More Magic (p. 13), viz.: assuming the three cards to be the knave of clubs, the seven of spades, and the nine of diamonds, the pack will consist of groups of those three cards, in the same order, repeated throughout. The effect of this arrangement is that, wherever the pack be cut, the three cards above or below the cut will always be a set of those three cards: and the same result follows, however many times the pack may be cut, or however many such groups may have been taken from it.
The second pack has no preparation, but the three cards corresponding to those of which the forcing pack is composed are so placed as to be ready to hand for palming.
The performer advances with the forcing pack, meanwhile executing a false shuffle of the kind which leaves the pack as if cut, but otherwise undisturbed as to order. Holding the pack on the outstretched palm of his left hand, he invites someone to cut it. This done, he takes back with the other hand the upper portion of the cut, and says, “You have cut where you pleased, have you not? If you think I made cut at that particular point, you can cut again. You are satisfied? Then I will ask you to be good enough to take three cards from the top of this lower heap. Keep them carefully. Don’t let me see them: in fact don’t show them just yet to anyone, but please remember exactly what they are.” He replaces the top half of the cut, and passing to another spectator, at some little distance from the first, has the pack cut again, and a second three cards taken in like manner. This is repeated with a third person, just far enough away from the second as to preclude any possibility of the three drawers comparing their cards.