Research source

I felt Antony give a little start as he read the message. Without a pause the Spook went on

Date of account: Published 1920
Source: The Road to En-Dor Being an Account of How Two Prisoners of War at Yozgad in Turkey Won Their Way to Freedom
Reference: The Road to En-Dor Being an Account of How Two Prisoners of War at Yozgad in Turkey Won Their Way to Freedom · selected passage 90
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

All this was not merely gratuitous by-play

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

All this was not merely gratuitous by-play. We were making a strong bid to capture the Commandant’s full belief, and every step in the séance had been carefully planned beforehand. The _manner_ in which the magic letter was written, in broad daylight and on a piece of paper selected by Moïse himself, seemed of itself something of a miracle. It was quite enough to impress the Commandant with the belief that he was up against supernatural forces. (Of course it really was nothing more than an extremely fine specimen of Hill’s sleight-of-hand. So deft were his movements that even I, who knew what to expect, had missed seeing the actual substitution of the prepared letter for Moïse’s blank paper, which had been “forced” on him, watermark and all, much as one “forces” the choice of a card.)

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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