Fifteen or sixteen years ago, Al Baker originated an effect using a deck of cards, three pieces of paper, and a borrowed hat. To the audience the procedure was to have three cards selected and thought of while the pack of cards was in their own hands. The names of these selections were written on pieces of paper, folded, and collected in the hat. One by one, the performer would take out the papers, and apparently by divination reveal the selected or thought of cards. I first obtained the original method in 1924 and later, around 1929, added somewhat to the general effect by using switches so as to be able to return the slips as read. In the meanwhile, Baker personally had given me three or four variations for the handling of the billets.

During the summer of 1929 I was camping near Waverly, New York, and much time was spent developing three principles; stacked decks; one-way backs on cards; and the thumb writing gimmick. Rather than say ‘developing’ I might better say ‘applying.’ (I’ll have more to say about the writing gimmick in a later issue) Among other things I ‘fell’ onto the fact that a stacked deck could be actually shuffled without impairing to any great degree its subsequent use in a trick. Around the first of November I returned to New York and proceeded to fool many of the boys who never dreamed I was actually using a stacked deck. Its most common application was in conjunction with a code, and Mrs A. would reveal the card from a distance when to the onlookers there wasn’t a chance of my knowing it or finding it. Baker immediately saw the possibility of using the principle in the three billet trick, and I did the trick most of that winter as given below. It was over a year later when I ran across the same idea of shuffling a stacked deck, in a 1907 issue of Stanyon’s Magic. Later, in 1934, when my book Sh-h-h– ! It’s a Secret was written, I included the principle in a trick and gave credit to the source.

Here then, is the working of this quite perfect mystery. Three pieces of paper are at hand and a deck of cards arranged in your favorite system. Hand the deck to someone to give a shuffle. As they start mixing, you cause them to hurry by asking them to put the deck face down on their left hand. Then, as an afterthought, tell them to give the deck a complete and square cut. During this you have turned away from them, and now you ask that they look at the top card of the deck and then insert it any place in the center of the deck and square the cards well. Turning back you hand them a piece of paper and take the deck. As you do so and start towards another person, you note the bottom or face card of the deck, count one ahead in the system and you know the first man’s card which he is writing on the paper.

Give the deck a quick riffle leaving the noted bottom card in place, and then an overhand shuffle brings it to the top. The second spectator takes the deck on his left hand face down, pulls a bunch from the center, notes the face card and drops the packet on top. Squaring the deck he cuts them once and again you take them and give him a paper for writing. Picking a third person, you ask that he fan through the deck and merely think of one he sees go by. For example you illustrate, and as you fan through the cards carelessly, you watch them for the card first noted and the one directly behind it is the card the second man chose ! The third man then thinks of a card as he himself fans through and this also is written down.

Just remember the two first cards selected and collect the folded papers in a borrowed hat, watching them as dropped in so you know which is the first, second and third. Reach in with your right hand and, fingerpalming the first slip with your second finger, bring out openly at your fingertips the third billet. Look at the first person and little by little name his card. Just as it is acknowledged, open the slip in hand (third) and nod your head as you refold and apparently return it to the writer. However, you have now found out the identity of the last or thought of card, and after refolding have switched for the first paper in hand and returned that. For those who can’t master a finger switch, my first method is very simple. I did it as above to the point where the third slip was refolded. It was then at my left fingertips and as I started towards the writer, I apparently put it in my right palm, actually fingerpalming it in the left and opening the right.

Return now to the hat and pick it up with the fingers of the hand holding the palmed billet inside and dropping it. Remark that there may be some suspicion that the handling of the papers enables you to learn the cards. Pass the hat directly to the second person and ask him to reach in and take out one of the two remaining papers. He is to open it and say whether or not it is his slip. If his, you impressively reveal the card while he holds the paper himself. If not his slip, ask him to hand it to the third person for a few minutes and take the remaining slip which must be his. Thus you are able to leave the actual thought of card for the last and get a better effect from it.

This routine will leave well informed magicians baffled because you not alone twist them up on the card selections but in the handling of the papers as well.

And that, my readers, is the history of one version of this effect, and how the principle came to be used in it to enhance the working. The first thought of many will be to figure a way to find out the third card and never open the papers. However, there is no way that will compare with having a spectator just think of a card, and that one point makes the trick an effect that will be talked about.