And it was fraud from beginning to end, as everybody now knows. Clairvoyance must be distinguished from prophecy, which Spiritualists sometimes claim. Prediction means the art of seeing things which do not exist, and it is therefore not even mentioned in this book. Clairvoyance means the art of seeing things through a brick wall (or any other opaque covering). Now this was an admirable piece of clairvoyance. Even Spiritualists present were suspicious, because the lady was quite unknown. Yet they could not see any suggestion of fraud or any "normal explanation." Did they turn back upon their earlier experiences of clairvoyance, when the fraud was confessed, and ask if those also may not have been due to trickery? Not in the least. Everything is genuine until it is found out--and, sometimes, even afterwards. Mr. Selbit, the conjurer who really conducted the performance, is naturally unwilling to give away his secret. He acknowledged immediately after the performance, as Mr. Moseley describes in his _Amazing Séance_, that he had fooled the audience. The masked lady was an actress with no more abnormal power than Sir Oliver Lodge has. Mr. Stuart Cumberland suggested at the time that, when the assistant went to the door to call the medium, he handed the box to a confederate and received a dummy box. He thought that the medium would then have time to study and memorize the contents of the real box (including a sealed letter in dog-German) before she entered the room. From the account, which is not precise enough, I can hardly see how she would have time for this. But Mr. Selbit acknowledged that a dummy box _was_ substituted. He says that a person entered the room in the dark, took the box from the table and substituted a dummy, and afterwards impersonated the ghost. This is most important for us. The room had been searched, and such acute observers as Mr. Stuart Cumberland and Superintendent Thomas, of Scotland Yard, were on the watch; yet a confederate got into the room. After this an ordinary Spiritualist séance is child's play. A long and minute description of the objects in the bag, which must have been spelled letter by letter in parts, on account of the difficult wording of the sealed letter, was in some way telegraphed or communicated to the girl under the eyes of this watchful group. It would be scarcely more marvellous to suppose that Mr. Selbit, after studying the contents of the box, took her place before their faces and they never knew it!