The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 7 plus 2 plus 4 letter word SLEIGHT OF HAND
I've seen this crossword clue in The Guardian
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More clues leading to the result SLEIGHT OF HAND
- Then, a goldfish flying! Conjuror's trickery
- Holding fast, he deployed cunning
- Folding hat, she carried out dextrous manoeuvre
- Magic vehicle carrying Santa to France with bit of help
- . Miss Vivian comes in the way of worker using deception
- Sight of Handel composing “An illusion”
- Dexterity shown by the French in view of worker
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "dextrous manoeuvre" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case dextrous manoeuvre = sleight of hand.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.