Free The Prestige by Christopher Priest

confusion. I imagine it was part of his design, and enabled him to
     take certain preparations in the room where the séance was to be conducted. He and his two
     young assistants, one male and one female, darkened the room with black blinds, moved
     unwanted furniture to the side while importing some of their own which they had brought
     with them, rolled back the carpet to bare the floorboards, and erected a certain wooden
     cabinet whose size and appearance was enough to convince me that conventional stage magic
     was about to be performed. I stayed discreetly but attentively in the background while
     these preparations were put in place. I did not wish to make myself at all interesting to
     the spiritist, because if he was alert he might have recognized me. The previous week my
     stage act had drawn a favourable press notice or two.
    The spiritist himself was a young man of about my own age, slight of build, dark of hair
     and narrow of forehead. He had a wary look to him, almost like that of a foraging animal
     going about its business. He made quick precise movements with his hands, a sure sign of a
     long-practising prestidigitator. The young woman who worked with him had a slender, agile
     body (because of her physique I assumed, wrongly as it turned out, that she would be
     employed in his illusions), and a strong, attractive face. She wore dark and modest
     clothes, and rarely spoke. The other assistant, a burly young man not long in his
     majority, had a broad thatch of fair hair and a churlish face, and he jibed and complained
     as he hauled in the heavy pieces of furniture.
    By the time my aunt's other guests arrived (she had invited some eight or nine of her
     friends to be present, presumably to help amortize the cost a little), the spiritist's
     preparations were complete and he and his assistants were sitting patiently in the
     prepared room, waiting for the time appointed. It was therefore impossible for me to
     examine their apparatus.
    The presentation, which with all the preamble and atmospheric pauses lasted for well over
     an hour, broke down into three main illusions, carefully arranged so as to create feelings
     of apprehension, excitement and suggestibility.
    First the spiritist performed a table-tipping illusion with a dramatic physical
     manifestation; the table spun around of its own accord, then reared up terrifyingly into
     the air, causing most of us to sprawl uncomfortably on the bare floor. After this the
     attendees were shaking with excited agitations and ready for anything that might follow.
     What did follow was that with the aid of his female accomplice the spiritist appeared to
     fall into a Mesmeric trance. He was then blindfolded, gagged, and bound hand and foot by
     his assistants, and placed helpless within his cabinet, whence emanated, soon enough,
     numerous noisy, startling and inexplicable paranormal effects: strange lights flashed
     brilliantly, trumpets, cymbals and castanets sounded, and eerie “ectoplasmic matter” rose
     of its own accord from the heart of the cabinet, and floated into the room illuminated by
     a mysterious light.
    Released from the cabinet and his bonds (when the cabinet was opened he was found as
     efficiently tied up as when he went inside), and miraculously restored from his Mesmerized
     state, the spiritist then got down to his main business. After a short but colourful
     warning about the dangers of “crossing over” to the spirit world, and a hint that the
     results justified the risk, the spiritist fell into another trance and soon was in touch
     with the other side. Before too long he was able to identify the spirit presence of
     certain departed relatives and close friends of the people gathered in the room, and
     comforting messages were conveyed from one group to the other.
    How did the young spiritist achieve all this?
    As I have already said, professional ethics constrain me. I could not then, and