Stealing Folded Billet from Tray

With a full understanding of the foregoing, it will be obvious that no confederate is needed if the performer can secretly gain possession of any one question and ascertain its contents before he starts to give his answers.

One of the ways to do this is as follows:-- The performer carries a small opaque tray and some blank slips of paper about 1-1/2" x 3-1/2" down into the audience. He passes out the slips on which the spectators are requested to write their questions. After this is done, he explains the necessity for secrecy and requests each spectator to fold his slip in half with the writing inside, then fold again in half the other way.

This done, the performer collects the questions on the tray. All the time the performer has held a folded blank slip on the under side of the tray, concealed by the fingers of the left hand. As he returns to the stage, the performer changes the tray from the left hand to the right, at the same time performing two simple secret moves. As the right hand takes hold of the tray, the right thumb slides off one of the question slips lying near the edge of tray. This question is slid over the edge of tray and falls into the right hand where it lies concealed between the right hand and the bottom of the tray.

The left hand at the same moment has done the reverse with the fake billet. As the tray is withdrawn from the left hand, the blank folded billet remains in the left hand until the edge of the tray passes over it when a slight motion of the left fingers will flip the billet in with the others on the tray. This fake billet has a bent corner or other secret mark by which it can be easily distinguished, otherwise the performer will have to follow it with his eyes so as to avoid picking it up until the end.

The tray is emptied on the table, the stolen question being secretly held in the palm of the right hand at the roots of the fingers. On the table is a crystal gazing ball resting on a cushion. The performer sits down back of the table, picks up a question slip from the pile, holds it to his forehead and gazes into the crystal. In the meantime, the right hand is back of the cushion quickly opening the stolen billet so it can be read, and announced as the one held at the forehead. The one ahead system is followed throughout, the stolen billet being switched for the blank billet after the performer has pretended to read it at the finish.