Mrs. Fay's most characteristic séance was when she sat in the middle of a circle of sitters, a bell and a guitar beside her. Her husband, "Colonel" Fay, was in the circle, but, as they held each other's hands, it was presumed that he could do nothing to help her if he wished. Mrs. Fay then began to clap her hands. The lights were extinguished, and, although Mrs. Fay continued to clap her hands loudly, so that you could be sure she was not using them, the bell was rung, the tambourine played, the sitters' beards were pulled, and so on. This was easy. When the gas was put out, Mrs. Fay no longer slapped her left hand against her right, but against her forehead or cheek--perhaps slapped the Colonel's face for a variation--and had the right hand free for business. No doubt the Colonel also released a hand, as we have seen Eusapia Palladino do, and joined the band. When this trick was realized, Mrs. Fay used to allow herself to be bound with tapes to a stake erected on the stage. A few minutes after the lights were put out the band began its ghostly, but not very impressive, music. Sometimes a pail was put beside her, and it was raised by invisible hands (in the dark) on to her head. When the light was restored Mrs. Fay was discovered still bound to the stake, the knots and seals intact. By an accident at one of her performances Mr. Podmore was enabled to see how she did it, and the secret has long been known. The tapes supplied had to be fastened in such a way that she could with great speed slip them up her slender arms and get into a working position. Maskelyne also exposed her, and trade fell off so badly that she made him an offer, by letter, to go on his stage and, for payment, show how all the tricks were done. She had by that time converted hundreds to Spiritualism. There were various other forms of the musical performance. One medium used to sit in sight of the audience with a sitter holding his hands. A cloth was then put over them both, from the neck downward, the lights extinguished, and the usual band began. He had released one hand, by the familiar trick, and reached behind him for the instruments. The medium, Bastian, also played instruments in the dark. At Arnheim, where he was edifying the Dutch Spiritualists, he was suspected, and it was arranged to ignite some inflammable cotton by an electric current from the next room. The next time a ghostly hand played the guitar above the heads of the sitters, the signal was given, and the flash lit the room. The guitar fell hastily to the table, and Bastian's hand retreated rapidly to its right place. His English Spiritualist admirers accepted his explanation that it was a "materialized" hand that was seen shrinking back into his body. One medium strummed his guitar with a long pencil which he took with his teeth out of his inner coat-pocket and held with his teeth. Others had telescopic rods or "lazy tongs" hidden about them, and used these in the dark.