when the back door of the cupboard No. I, is opened.
A bright light then pervades the cupboard, and the
body of the man would be discovered if it were there.
But it is not. The putting the key in the lock
of the back door was a signal on hearing which the
person concealed brought his body forward to an angle
as acute as possible—throwing it altogether,
or nearly so, into the main compartment. This,
however, is a painful position, and cannot be long
maintained. Accordingly we find that Maelzel closes
the back door. This being done, there is no reason
why the body of the man may not resume its former
situation—for the cupboard is again so dark
as to defy scrutiny. The drawer is now opened,
and the legs of the person within drop down behind
it in the space it formerly occupied. {*4} There is,
consequently, now no longer any part of the man in
the main compartment—his body being behind
the machinery in cupboard No. 1, and his legs in the
space occupied by the drawer. The exhibiter,
therefore, finds himself at liberty to display the
main compartment. This he does—opening
both its back and front doors—and no person
Is discovered. The spectators are now satisfied
that the whole of the box is exposed to view—and
exposed too, all portions of it at one and the same
time. But of course this is not the case.
They neither see the space behind the drawer, nor
the interior of cupboard No. 1 —the front
door of which latter the exhibiter virtually shuts
in shutting its back door. Maelzel, having now
rolled the machine around, lifted up the drapery of
the Turk, opened the doors in his back and thigh,
and shown his trunk to be full of machinery, brings
the whole back into its original position, and closes
the doors. The man within is now at liberty to
move about. He gets up into the body of the Turk
just so high as to bring his eyes above the level of
the chess-board. It is very probable that he
seats himself upon the little square block or protuberance
which is seen in a corner of the main compartment
when the doors are open. In this position he sees
the chess-board through the bosom of the Turk which
is of gauze. Bringing his right arm across his
breast he actuates the little machinery necessary
to guide the left arm and the fingers of the figure.
This machinery is situated just beneath the left shoulder
of the Turk, and is consequently easily reached by
the right hand of the man concealed, if we suppose
his right arm brought across the breast. The
motions of the head and eyes, and of the right arm
of the figure, as well as the sound echec are
produced by other mechanism in the interior, and actuated
at will by the man within. The whole of this
mechanism—that is to say all the mechanism
essential to the machine—is most probably
contained within the little cupboard (of about six
inches in breadth) partitioned off at the right (the
spectators’ right) of the main compartment.