Eight

Houdini’s act continued. Bess was presented as the incredible mind reader.

“I’m the brawn, she’s the brain,” Houdini told the audience.

He went down into the audience with a pack of cards. He stopped by an elderly woman and asked her to pick a card, memorize it, then place it into a little black box.

“Bess will now read your mind and tell you what card lies inside the box,” he said.

Bess appeared to go into a trance.

“When you are ready, Bess. We don’t want to rush you.”

“I see the card,” she said in a high, tense voice. “It’s—it’s the nine of spades.”

“The nine of spades. Was she right?”

“Yes, she was,” the woman replied.

“Then please open the box and show us your card.”

The woman opened the box. “It’s empty!” she exclaimed.

“How unfortunate. Something must have gone wrong,” Houdini said. “Wait a minute.”

He ran nimbly back onto the stage. “Bess, would you please stand up? I believe you are sitting on something.”

She stood. A card was on her chair. It was the nine of spades.

The audience cheered. Then a black hood was placed over Bess’s head after audience members were given a chance to examine it and declare that nothing could be seen through it. Harry went down into the audience again and asked people to hand him articles. Bess identified, without hesitation, a lady’s handkerchief, a pocket watch, even a photograph of a child.

“This child is no longer with us,” she said. “Am I right? She wants you to know that she is safe and happy where she is.”

There were murmurs through the audience. “Can she contact the spirits?” someone asked. “Can she talk to my dead husband?”

“Ladies and gentlemen, we don’t profess to be spiritualists,” Houdini said. “Bess is—well, let’s just say she has a gift in that direction. But now let’s move on to the part of the show you have all come to see. We now present for you the Metamorphosis, as performed before the great houses of Europe. The Kaiser offered me a thousand marks if I would tell him how it is done. Others have claimed that I can dematerialize my body or that I am in league with the devil. I assure you I am not in league with him.”

A trunk was pushed onto the stage. It was bound with metal straps and held with two large locks. Houdini removed his jacket and his tie. Then he removed his shirt and trousers, so that he wore nothing more than a one-piece, form-fitting costume rather like a pair of combinations that have shrunk in the wash.

“I now invite two strong men from the audience to come up onstage to examine me and this trunk,” he said.

There was a stampede to get to the stage and the first two were allowed up the steps. They were burly young men, both of them, the kind you’d expect to see hanging around some less reputable type of tavern.

“Perfect for the task,” Houdini said. “Now if you would be good enough to search me to see that I carry no tools on my person that might enable me to free myself from any lock or key.”

They duly patted his body and pronounced him clear. Then he opened the trunk. They felt around inside, tried the locks, and nodded.

“Now,” Houdini said. “Here on the table you will find an assortment of handcuffs and leg irons. I invite you gentlemen to examine them, then apply them to my arms and legs any way you see fit.”

The two men went to town, clamping the cuffs and irons on him with his arms tightly behind his back and his legs bound together.

“Thank you, you have been most helpful,” Houdini said. “Don’t go away. I have more work in store for you. Now I ask Madame Houdini to wheel onstage my special cabinet.”

I felt the curtains brush at me as a contraption was wheeled out. It was nothing more than a three-sided frame with velvet drapes, about shoulder-high.

“The bag, if you please, Bess,” Houdini said. He turned to the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen, I shall now place this bag inside the trunk, and ask these gentlemen to help me into it, then tie the drawstring tight. Then when I am in the trunk, they will secure the locks.” He turned back to his volunteers. “Is that clear to you, gentlemen?”

The men nodded again. A drumroll started in the orchestra pit. Bess held open the velvet bag and the men helped Houdini into it. They drew it tight and tied it shut, then they forced the bag, with Houdini in it, into the trunk. The lid was closed, the locks snapped shut. The men returned to their seats.

Now the drumroll increased in tempo. Bess rotated the cabinet so that it concealed the trunk from the audience.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the theater manager announced. “This trunk has about enough air to keep a person alive for about seven minutes. Of course inside a thick velvet bag, that’s another matter altogether. A couple of minutes at the most. We have men standing by offstage with axes, just in case.”

As he finished speaking Houdini sprang up from the cabinet, his hands above his head to reveal he was free of his bonds. The audience broke into thunderous applause. Then Houdini wheeled aside the cabinet. The trunk was still locked, the great fetters quite undisturbed.

“Let’s open it, shall we?” he said, a mischievous smile on his face. “Who knows what it may contain.”

He bent to open one of the locks. Then he frowned, tried again, rattled it.

“The lock is stuck!” he called out. “It’s jammed. Quick—where’s the key? My jacket, quickly.”

Someone handed him his frock coat and he felt desperately inside. “Where’s the key?” he demanded. “It’s gone. Someone run up to my dressing room and get the spare key. Go!”

At this point a muffled voice shouted, “Harry, get me out of here!”

Bess was now inside the trunk.

Houdini summoned stagehands to help him. Bess was now pounding from inside the trunk.

“Get me out! I can’t breathe!”

“She’s already been in there nearly five minutes, Mr. Houdini.” The stage manager came to join them. “We can’t wait for the key. Bring the ax.”

One of the stagehands reappeared with an ax.

“Go carefully, that’s my wife in there.” Harry said.

The stagehand swung the ax and cracked the lid of the trunk. Houdini himself tore apart the trunk lid and finally managed to open it. He and the stagehands dragged out the velvet bag, containing what seemed to be a lifeless figure. As the neck of the bag was untied, Bess lay unconscious on the stage.

“My God, I’ve killed her. Bess, baby, honey, don’t die!” Harry shouted, slapping at her cheeks.

Bess gasped, coughed, and tried to sit up. “What were you doing?” she demanded. “Trying to kill me?”

For the second time in a week the theater manager dismissed the audience before the end of the show. A doctor was summoned. I had stood up the moment the ax was brought onstage. Now I dragged out my chair and assisted Bess to it. She sank onto it, still white-faced and gasping. Someone produced a glass of water. Harry was on his knees beside her.

“Sweetie pie, baby, I don’t know what went wrong. I swear I don’t. As if I would want anything bad to happen to you. Are you okay? My God, if they hadn’t had that ax nearby . . .”

“I can’t do this no more, Harry,” Bess said. She was crying now, her body jerking with great sobs. “I can’t live with us risking our lives every night. I want out. I want you to find another profession.”

“Are you crazy?” Harry rose to his feet now. “Just when we’re hitting the big time? Bess, baby, we’re going to be big stars. I mean really big. You want me to buy you a fancy house in New York City? A nice home in the country? Just a little longer, then you can have it. Anything you want, baby. Then I swear I’ll quit. We’ll raise chickens, okay?”

At this Bess laughed through her tears and pushed him away. “You know I hate chickens,” she said.

“Come on, I’ll take you up to the dressing room and you can have some of your calming mixture and lie down,” he said. He swept her up into his arms as if she weighed nothing and started to walk away with her. I stood watching, undecided as to whether I dared follow or not. This option was taken from me by the theater manager who fell into step at Harry’s shoulder.

“So what went wrong, Mr. Houdini?” he demanded.

“The lock jammed. Accidents happen,” Harry said, not turning back to him.

“Two accidents in a week? Are you trying to shut me down?” I heard the manager’s voice echoing in that vast backstage area.

I was left alone onstage, not sure what to do next. Clearly Bess was in no state to see me. Did this now mean I was out of a job before it started? I started to make my way from the stage, unnoticed by everyone. Just my luck that a lock would jam on the night I was supposed to be introduced as her replacement. Then I froze, standing beside a mock pillar in the backstage darkness. Had Bess had some kind of premonition that this was going to happen to her, so had she sought me out to replace her and to be suffocated instead? In which case it was indeed just my luck that the accident had happened too early.

I tiptoed out of the theater, feeling like an invisible ghost. I should make a rule for myself: never deal with hysterical women, I told myself. I remembered the last time I had been employed in the theater by an actress who had lied to me and was using me for her own ends. Was no one in the theater to be trusted? I had been misled and used on two occasions now. Which then brought another train of thought into my mind. Was what I had witnessed just another illusion? Had Bess arranged for the lock to jam so that she could have an attack of hysterics onstage and thus claim to her husband that she was afraid to perform anymore?

I realized I was dealing with a world in which nothing was what it seemed. The smartest thing I could do was walk out of this theater and not look back.