Nevermore (11 page)

These slides had an unsettling effect on the audience. Excited screams punctuated Conan Doyle’s calm presentation. A woman fainted in the front row. Throughout the hall, general commotion indicated a level of discomfort exacerbated by the stifling heat.

“I should like to conclude with a remarkable series of spirit photographs.” Sir Arthur spoke in a soothing tone, trying to quell the unease the way one quiets an angry dog. “These are the work of William Hope, who is employed as a carpenter in Crewe.”

There followed a number of slides showing men and women in formal studio portrait poses. Above their heads, disembodied faces floated in the air, hovering in individual cloudlike nimbi. With each successive image, the audience grew increasingly restless. The moans and screams multiplied. Many wandered aimlessly up and down the aisles. Several fainted.

Houdini watched this spectacle in amazement. “Remarkable how easily crowds are duped,” he whispered to his wife. “A simple double exposure is all it takes.”

Bess smiled in the darkness. “Not so very different from what you’ve been doing all these years.”

“I never claimed to be supernatural,” came his quick, indignant reply. “Everybody knows what I do are tricks.”

Bess said nothing but her smug smile remained unchanged.

The abrupt end of the lecture seemed almost an anticlimax. A final slide faded from view. Sir Arthur thanked his dazed audience for coming, gave a short bow, and walked off the stage. He received only a smattering of applause. Even this much seemed inappropriate, like clapping in church.

Backstage, the crush surrounding Conan Doyle’s dressing room prevented Houdini and Bess from any immediate attempt to get near. The magician knew enough of personal fame and had no desire to intrude on Sir Arthur’s glory. While Bess excused herself to seek out a ladies room, Houdini lounged against an ornate cast-iron radiator, ironically the coolest object in the ovenlike heat.

“Why have you been avoiding me?” The soft, melodic voice took the magician by surprise. Opal Crosby Fletcher fixed him with her penetrating gaze. She looked indescribably lovely in a sequined black Molyneux frock.

Houdini glanced about nervously. “I haven’t been avoiding you. What gives you that idea?”

“Your manager never got back to my secretary. About a séance …? Remember?”

The magician stammered. “Well … I mean … there must’ve been some mix-up.”

Her knowing, confident smile disarmed him. “You forgot all about it, didn’t you?”

“No. Certainly not.”

“I took you for a fair man, willing to be an impartial judge.” Isis reached up and straightened his bow tie. He flinched at her touch. “Evidently, I was misinformed.”

“Look … Mrs. Fletcher, I am—”

“Isis.” Her voice rang clear and cold as crystal.

“I beg your pardon…?”

“My name is Isis.”

Houdini looked away from the penetrating cat-green eyes.

“Isis it is then… . Please understand, I am a man of my word.

If I said I would attend a séance, well, then—”

“It’s not a question of if. When is more to the point.”

“Whenever you say.”

“Tonight…?” The mysterious, mocking smile was more than a little bit wicked.

The magician drew back from her burning intensity. Who was this woman? “I have a prior engagement,” he said.

“Break it.”

Houdini felt a loss of equilibrium, as if the floor opened up beneath him. No one ever spoke to him in this manner. His fuse burned extremely short and any opposition to his will invariably detonated a temper tantrum. Vickery, Collins, and the rest of the staff had long ago learned to tolerate his extreme bursts of uncontrollable anger. This time confusion, not rage, gripped him. By nature chivalrous, he felt unsure how to react to such a bold feminine challenge. “I … ,” he started, managing no better than, “I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

“I thought you were the master of the impossible.” Her mocking smile transfixed him, like a pin through the butterfly’s heart.

“Look,” the magician said, “I don’t know how to
put it
any plainer: I have another engagement and can’t get out of it.”

Isis laughed. “Something you can’t get out of. Must be a first for the great escapologist.”

His exaggerated sense of his own dignity normally could not allow him to tolerate being teased, but something about her dancing eyes and the musical chime of her laughter charmed him, scribing a mooncalf’s grin onto his usual stern expression. “If it were possible, believe me, I would change my plans to accommodate you, but unfortunately—”

“What’s so unfortunate, dear?” Bess appeared unexpectedly out of the shadows in the narrow corridor.

Houdini’s lunar grin froze, a startled grimace advertising unspecified guilt. “Oh, Bess … here you are. I … I was just explaining to Mrs. Fletcher that we were unavailable tonight.”

“Unavailable for what?”

“To attend a séance.” The magician looked clearly uncomfortable. “I know you haven’t met. Mrs. Houdini, allow me to introduce Mrs. Opal Crosby Fletcher.”

“My friends call me Isis.” The delicate oval face remained serene and composed, radiant in its unearthly beauty.

Bess ignored the slender outstretched hand. “A distinct pleasure, Mrs. Fletcher,” she said, each word crisp and clear, as if individually carved from ice.

“Yes. I’m sure.” Isis looked straight past Bess, focusing her intense attention on the magician. “I’ll expect your call,” she said softly, gliding off down the hall, her midnight dress melting into the shadows.

Houdini stared after her. “Consorting with the enemy?” Bess jibed.

“She asked me to act as an impartial psychic investigator at one of her séances.”

“My knight in shining armor.” Bess gave him a big hug. “Be careful of that one, Harry. She’s dangerous.”

Twenty minutes later, the press of true believers diminished sufficiently to allow the Houdinis to join Sir Arthur and Lady Conan Doyle for their planned evening of dining and dancing at the Central Park Casino. They stepped out of the stage entrance onto Seventh Avenue, confronting a crowd of reporters between them and the hired horse-drawn hansom cab waiting at the curb. Sir Arthur bristled at the sight of the gathered newsmen. “Damned jackals,” he muttered to Houdini, half under his breath.

The reporters immediately recognized the two couples and closed in, all shouting questions at once. Conan Doyle remained polite, replying to the predictable queries with appropriately monosyllabic answers. How much did he enjoy America? Did he feel tonight’s lecture had gone well?

“What progress has been made in the
Scientific American
competition?” asked a whippet-faced journalist.

Sir Arthur seemed pleased with the question. He answered with a smile. “Well, as you all must know, a twenty-five-hundred-dollar prize has been offered to the first person producing a genuine psychic manifestation. Malcolm Bird, the magazine’s associate editor, came over to London at the beginning of the year, and together we attended several séances. We had sittings with Evan Powell and with another medium named John Sloan.

“Unfortunately, in both instances the results were inconclusive, but I expect to continue these investigations with Bird while on tour in the States and have every expectation that we shall be awarding the prize before long.”

A woman from the
Herald,
whose long neck, pallid face, and taupe cloche hat made her head appear to be a monstrous mushroom, tried to interject a literary note into the proceedings. “Are you influenced by Edgar Allan Poe?” she asked in a reedy, strident voice.

Conan Doyle hesitated. Those of the press familiar with the author knew firsthand his aversion to questions of this sort and grinned in anticipation of his sardonic rejoinder. In fact, Sir Arthur was jolted into a startling recollection of the morning’s apparition. Had he really seen the specter? Did his profound belief in spiritism cloud his reason? The circle of waiting, expectant faces brought him back to the moment. “Poe…?” He blinked, seemingly bewildered. “Oh, immensely. His detective is the best in literature.”

The woman from the
Herald
scribbled furiously in an F. W. Woolworth notebook. “You mean, except for Sherlock Holmes?”

Conan Doyle stiffened, his face registering subtle degrees of displeasure. “I make no exception!” he bellowed.

The knight’s brusque bark had those in the know grinning. No one much cared for the gangly woman from the
Herald,
and her blunder provided general amusement. Still, the reporters found it hard to fault her motives. Sherlock Holmes remained a subject of interest to most readers, whereas all this spiritualism business seemed a touch loony.

A young reporter wearing eyeglasses as thick as the bottoms of beer mugs unfurled a copy of the late edition of the
American.
A bold Hearst headline blared: Poe Murders Grip City. “Seeing how much you like Poe,” he said, “what do you think of Runyon’s notion that we’ve got some kind of well-read maniac running around town?”

Sir Arthur grinned. “As you all know, I am a devotee of homicide, but alas, I’ve been much too busy lately preparing for my lecture tour to pay close attention to any recent local-bloodletting.”

The bespectacled man handed him the paper. “Here. Read all about it.”

“I certainly shall, and with great interest.”

“Any advice to give the boys in blue?” asked another reporter.

“Boys in blue…? I don’t follow.”

“You know, the cops. New York’s finest. The police. Any inside tips on how to go about finding a literary killer?”

Sir Arthur glanced down at the headline on the newspaper he held. “I daresay it would be best to be apprised of the facts in the case before endeavoring to give advice.”

“Boys … boys …” Houdini strutted before them on the sidewalk. “Let me tell you something. If anyone’s gonna get to the bottom of this mystery, it’ll be Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And you can take that one to the bank.”

“Is that right, Sir Arthur?” a reporter shouted. “You gonna crack the Poe case?”

The noble knight looked a bit bewildered. “I wouldn’t say that… . I don’t have any of the facts at my disposal.”

“He’s being too modest, fellas.” Houdini gestured like an energetic carnival pitchman. “This is the mind that gave the world Sherlock Holmes. Here is a master of deduction! This man is, in fact, Sherlock Holmes personified. Who else better suited to solving crime than the greatest detective on earth?”

Like scraps tossed to mongrels, the magician’s remarks unleashed a frenzy of questioning among the rabid reporters. They danced about the two couples, an agitated wolf pack with the scent of blood in their nostrils.

Conan Doyle flushed pink with embarrassment. “Gentlemen, please,” he pleaded. “I am not a detective. I am an author. Let us not confuse fiction with reality.”

“What about the Oscar Slater case?” a reporter yelled.

“What about the George Edalji mystery?” another joined in. “The business with the mutilated cattle?”

“I’m afraid you must excuse us now.” Sir Arthur shouldered through the yammering reporters, clearing a path to the waiting cab for his wife and the Houdinis. “We really must be on our way. Thank you very much indeed.”

Once the cab door closed, the driver flicked his buggy whip and the swaybacked mare pulled the hansom out into traffic, passing in front of a streetcar pausing to discharge passengers at the Fifty-seventh Street corner. Sir Arthur’s breath came in labored, choleric gasps. “How could you?” he said to Houdini, struggling for composure. “All that balderdash about the greatest detective on earth.”

The magician smiled like a kid who’s just hit a home run. “Where’s the harm in a little ballyhoo?” “Harm? Why, it’s utter nonsense.” “No need to get upset. Just publicity.” “Bad publicity.” “No such thing … “

B
ITTER THOUGHTS CROWDED
M
ARY
Rogers’s head as she struggled to stay awake. After more than thirty-six hours on the dance floor she felt giddy with exhaustion. Her hard, brassy, marceled hair hung lank and disordered about her aching neck. Sweat wilted the pleated green silk Charmeuse frock she’d paid nearly eight dollars for at an after Christmas sale. It was her favorite outfit and had been marked down from $ 11.98. She had worn it not for comfort but because of how good she imagined she would look for the publicity pictures following her triumphant victory.

Mary Rogers exemplified the epitome of a modern flapper, a sheba who might have stepped straight from one of John Held, Jr.’s racy cartoons. Her hair was bobbed and peroxided, she smoked in public and rolled her hose below the knee and, while still in high school in Teaneck, New Jersey, flopped about wearing unbuckled galoshes and rode with her date to the prom in an open flivver painted with catchy slogans: “99 44/100% Pure,” “Lizzie of the Valley,” “Mrs. Often,” “Four Wheels, No Brakes.”

College was never an option for a girl from a working-class family, so after graduation, armed with her stenography certificate, Mary headed straight for Manhattan, found a two-room Greenwich Village apartment, and secured employment at the Consolidated Life Insurance Company. To her Irish immigrant family, none of whom had gone beyond grade school, this seemed a remarkable achievement. Although she felt proud landing a job usually reserved for men, Mary wanted something more out of life than just taking dictation.

She spent her free time in movie palaces and vaudeville theaters, fueling her dreams of glamour and fame. One Saturday afternoon, coming out of a matinee at Loew’s New York on Times Square, a man stopped her on the street, gave her his card, and inquired if she’d be interested in working in pictures. Her life changed forever on that day.

Although the promised work turned out to be three days as an extra in a production starring Babe Ruth across the Hudson in Fort Lee, Mary promptly quit her steno’s job to pursue a career in show business. A total lack of talent hindered her in this occupation. She didn’t sing, dance, or act, and soon discovered a pretty face only landed her a regular spot on the casting couch.

To make ends meet, she took a position as a cigarette girl at Barney Gallant’s ultrafancy Washington Square speakeasy, where they served the hooch in ginger ale bottles and printed a set of mock rules on the menus admonishing patrons to “make no requests of the leader of the orchestra for the songs of the vintage of 1890. Crooning ‘Sweet Adeline’ was all right for your granddad, but times, alas, have changed.”