"I'll tell you later," he said. "We have to get ready for the trick box
and the vanishing lady stunt now."

"Oh, Joe! were you in much danger?" she asked in a low voice.

"Oh, not much," he answered, and he tried to speak lightly. Yet he did
not like to think of that one moment when he saw the rusted and broken
wire.

While Joe and Helen are preparing for the box act, which has been
treated fully in the previous volume, the explanation of how the
vanishing lady trick was accomplished will be given, though that, too,
has been explained in an earlier volume.

A large newspaper is put on the stage and the chair set on the paper,
thus, seemingly, precluding the possibility of a trap door being cut in
the stage through which the lady in the chair might slip. The word
"seemingly" is used with a due sense of what it means. The newspaper was
not a perfect one. On one of its sides which was not exhibited to the
audience, there was cut an opening, or trap, that exactly corresponded
in size with a trap door on the stage. The paper, as explained in the
previous book, is strengthened with cardboard, and the trap is a double
one, being cut in the center, the flaps being easily moved either way.

The audience thinks it sees a perfect newspaper. But there is a square
hole in it, but concealed as is a secret trap door.

When Joe laid the paper on the stage he placed it so that the square,
double flap in it was exactly over the trap in the stage floor. He then