Circa 1972, I attended a party with my then-wife Laura which was attended by other magicians and their wives. Dave Solomon offered to do a trick and asked Laura to assist him. He invited her to sit, and just as she did, he released a card from the bottom of the deck which artfully fell in the middle of the chair just as she sat down. I was standing where I could see this happen but I was the only one who knew.
Then Dave asked Laura to shuffle the cards. I could hardly contain myself because I knew what was going to happen and there was nothing I could do about it. Art Weygandt, Laura’s father, taught Laura the Faro Shuffle, and it was the only way she knew how to mix the cards. Whenever Laura and I played Gin Rummy, she would always split the deck at 26 and do perfect “out” shuffles. So when Dave told her to shuffle, she immediately tried to cut at 26, became frustrated, and said “there is a card missing!”
For a long moment Dave was speechless. Finally, he said “you’re sitting on it.” She got up retrieved the card, added it to the deck and began to shuffle again. Dave said “never mind it’s too late now!” The audience went nuts.
The story got around. It became so well known that when I visited London, Alex Elmsley told me the story. Alex said “magicians have been nailed for lots of reasons, but this one takes the prize!”
The story that has become famous in magic circles. Wish I could take credit for it, but it belongs to my sister, Laura. Here's the story as it happened according to Steve Draun:
