Magical Originalities
Ernest E. Noakes
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The Hand of MisteryTHE performer introduces an ordinary blackboard and proceeds to mark the alphabet out with chalk, in five rows, with 2, Yes and No in the sixth line as per illustration. He now opens a box and takes out a cardboard hand and has it examined by the audience, and now explains that the hand, although apparently quite an ordinary piece of cardboard, really possesses highly trained brains. The audience are requested to mention any letter, and the hand is then placed pointing to that letter on the board, and to the surprise of the audience it remains there.
The performer now asks for questions, and the hand moves about and spells out the replies. The trick permits of shortening or prolonging to suit the time at the disposal of the performer. The points to assure the working are as follows.
The blackboard should be smooth and not tilted at too great an angle, and at the bottom of the board, resting upon the pegs, must be a narrow strip of wood for a shelf wider than the hand, and having a narrow strip of wood along the front of it to hide the duplicate hand. The duplicate hand has a thread attached to it (at the dots shown on the hand in the illustration). The reverse side of the duplicate hand is of the same colour as the length of wood at the bottom of the blackboard. To prepare for presenting the trick, two small screw-eyes are placed in the blackboard at the top corners as near the edge as possible. A thread is now led through each of the screw-eyes and connected to the hand, so that when the hand is fixed the threads permit it to lay face downwards upon the strip of wood, and the coloured side renders it invisible.
When the threads are adjusted and the performer is ready to commence the trick, he gives a cue to his assistant to slacken out the threads as he moves the blackboard a little on the stage (just for misdirection). When he writes the alphabet upon the board he takes care that the letters are not too near the sides, also that he does not chalk the threads which are reaching from the two top corners to the hand reclining upon the shelf. When the board is written, the hand is passed for examination, and the letter asked for at which the finger of the hand shall first point. Having been told the letter, the performer approaches the blackboard, and seizes the opportunity to get rid of the genuine hand in his inside jacket pocket or other place where he can obtain it again later on, and whilst the board is "covered" by his body, picks up the faked hand and holds it against the suggested letter until the assistant has tightened the thread, when of course the hand remains there "quite unsupported."
The rest of the performance is "in the hands of the assistant" in both senses. As he relaxes one thread the hand will descend in a semicircle until it reaches the limit of the other thread, as the attachments to the hand are some distance apart. If both ends of thread are slacked, the hand will sink straight down, but if one end only the hand will trav,el away from that side of the blackboard. If the hand is at "N" (as per illustration) and the assistant has to take it to "A," he would slack out with one hand, and take in with the other, which would cause the hand to ascend wrist first, and should finally rest either pointing horizontally at "A," or downwards--according to the distance between the letter and the screw-eye. It is a curious effect to cause the hand to travel from, say, "V" to "E," as the threads permit the finger to point its way across the board. As the effects are somewhat surprising, it would pay the reader to experiment with the movements of a card or something, harnessed up in this manner, even if he did not contemplate working the trick in his show. I have had considerable amusement with this trick. To finish the trick, the faked hand is replaced on the shelf, and the genuine hand again shown.
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