THE LADY VANISHES

he performer offers to teach his audience how to vanish a Lady. He displays a draped tray, a picture of a Lady, (a Jumbo Queen) and two flat boards to "screen" the Lady. He now turns his back to the audience, and performs the effect for an imaginary audience in front of him, while the real audience has a backstage view of the working. 
The two boards are placed on the tray. The Lady Card is displayed, and dropped between the two boards. The Boards are then removed, and freely displayed on both sides, to show the Lady has vanished. The real audience, however, have seen how the effect is accomplished, because they have seen the Lady Card drop through a slot in the tray into ribbon loops under the tray. However the Lady is not visible from the front, being concealed by the drape. 
After some remarks to the effect that when performed with a real Lady one would require a much larger trap on the stage than the slot in the tray, and a bigger ribbon cradle, the performer offers to repeat the effect, this time with the real audience to the front. 
The two boards are again placed on the tray, and the Lady dropped between them. The boards are removed and freely displayed on both sides. The Lady has vanished. The performer explains that there may be a few wise people in the audience who may figure out that the Lady is behind the drape. As he says this, he turns the tray around, so that the audience sees the back of the Lady card hanging in the ribbon harness behind the drape. 
If this happens, the performer continues, he has no recourse, except to use some "real magic". The tray is turned, drape side again facing audience. The performer gestures dramatically to make the Lady vanish, then peels away the drape to show the Lady has indeed vanished. Both the drape and tray are freely shown all sides, with no trace of the Lady.