Miracles of Modern Magic
Harry Whiteley
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The Tin Trunk Release
TO BE locked in a borrowed steel trunk and yet escape without injuring this curious prison reads like the impossible, and yet the secret is simplicity itself.
In the majority of trunks at present used the hasp on the lid is fastened with a couple of small bolts and nuts, the lock on the body being secured in a similar manner. After entering the trunk the performer takes from his pocket a small screw key, and at once applies himself to unscrewing the nuts in the lid. By this time the box should have been lifted into the stage cabinet, and the curtains drawn. Now the imprisoned one pushes out the bolts securing the hasp, this allowing him to raise the lid and step out. With a duplicate key he opens the lock, replaces hasp on lid, screws bak the nuts, and then re-locks and brings forward for inspection the uninjured trunk.
If the trunk manipulator can pick the trunk lock there is no occasion for him to procure a duplicate key, but how many manipulators can pick even the commonest of locks?
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