The following is a remarkably effective way of concluding a trick when it is desirable to display in an astonishing manner a card selected by one of the company. Thus, it might be used in connection with the foregoing trick.
Instead of giving the two parts of the prepared deck to two persons, you should give only half, to one person, for example the red cards. You then bid him draw out one of the cards, and after he has done so, you take back from him the other red cards. You now direct him to observe the card he has retained. When he has done so, you offer him the black half of the deck, bidding him replace the card and shuffle. On taking back the cards, a glance through them enables you to find the card chosen, since it will be the one red among the twenty-six black cards. But you do not announce the card. Instead, you proceed to the conclusion of the trick, in this wise:
On discovering the selected card, you advance one card beyond it, and then cut the cards so that the chosen card will be next to the top card. I t is necessary now to shuffle the cards a little, in order to mingle the red and black, but in doing this care must be taken to maintain the position of the top two cards.
You next lay face downward on the table nine cards in three rows of three cards each, and then another nine on top of these, making eighteen in all. As you lay these cards down from left to right, it is obvious that the chosen card, which was next to the top of the deck, must be the second card laid down on the table, and it is now therefore the bottom card of the two in the middle of the first row. This location must be carefully remembered, since it is of vital importance to the trick.
When the cards have thus been distributed, you ask the chooser of the card to select one of the vertical rows. After he has indicated his choice, your procedure depends on whether or not he has chosen the middle row, which of course includes his card. If he has chosen the middle row, you immediately pick up the other two rows, and throw them aside. You then ask him to choose one of the three pairs of the middle row left lying on the table. If he now selects the top pair, of which the bottom one is his original card, you now leave this pair, but take away the other two pairs. You finally bid him select one of the two cards left. If he selects his own card, you cast aside the other, and direct him to turn over the one he’ has selected, when to his amazement he discovers that it is in fact the card of his original selection.
But if, of the two cards, he should indicate the one not originally chosen by him, you simply cast this card aside in a matterof-fact manner, and remark that there now remains only a single card out of the eighteen laid down, and bid him turn this over. When he does so, his astonishment is unbounded to recognize in it the card of his choice.
It is in this various method of treating the person’s selection of rows and cards that the secret of the trick is to be found. The student would naturally suppose that an intelligent person must notice the difference between leaving a row on the table or throwing it aside after it has been selected. But the intelligent person does not so notice.
Thus, for example, if at the outset he should choose either of the other rows instead of the middle row, you instantly cast this row aside, and bid him choose again one of the two remaining rows. If now he chooses the third row, that in turn is cast aside, and afterward the procedure with the middle row, which is the only one now left, is exactly as described above. But if instead of choosing the third row, he chooses the middle row, your action is the same as before, for you cast aside the third row, and continue with the trick in the manner described above.
So, too, in reference to the middle row: whatever pair is chosen, your procedure must be the same. As a matter of form, you ask him to choose one of the pairs. But, unless he chooses the top pair which contains his card, you cast aside the pair he chooses, and bid him make another selection, when again you cast aside his choice, if it be not the top pair. It is indeed curious that you are able in such fashion either to retain his selection on the table, or to remove it, without his ever discovering the flagrant deception, but so it is.