Nevermore (7 page)

“Mrs. Houdini,” Conan Doyle called in his bluff, hearty manner. “Delightful to see you once again. You’re looking quite splendid.” Stooping, he tousled a furry canine neck.

“Welcome, welcome,” Bess said, taking Jean by the hand.

“And this is the brother of the great Houdini,” the magician trumpeted like a carnival barker, pointing to a square-jawed man in the doorway behind his wife. Not a hint of irony in his voice. Houdini gestured expansively at his newly arrived guests. “Dash. I want you to meet the man who gave the world Sherlock Holmes: Sir Arthur and Lady Conan Doyle.”

The knight caught his lady’s eye as the “great” man’s brother stepped up to shake hands. He detected a definite twinkle, but she kept her face blank as a card player holding trumps.

“Theo Weiss,” the brother said, by way of introduction. “My friends call me Dash.”

“Dash it is then, what?”

Houdini suggested his wife and brother might want to get Lady Conan Doyle some refreshment and keep her company until the other guests arrived. His gracious manner belied his impatience. “I know Sir Arthur is anxious to have a look at the library.”

In fact, the magician was the one who was anxious. His extensive collection of books and memorabilia dealing with magic, witchcraft, conjuring, spiritualism, and the theater was his pride and joy. He believed it to be the finest library of its kind on earth and was always eager to show it off to an appreciative audience.

“If it’s no trouble,” said Sir Arthur, “I should be pleased to do some browsing.”

Houdini bowed the knight toward a set of double doors, his “Alphonse and Gaston” manner unintentionally comic. The library occupied a huge room on the ground floor. Shelves of books rising to the ceiling lined all four walls. They surrounded hundreds of other stacked volumes. The two men wove between a waist-high colonnade as if negotiating a maze. Houdini showed Sir Arthur his proudest treasures: David Garrick’s diary, a Bible autographed by Martin Luther, Edgar A. Poe’s portable writing desk.

This simple wooden box held Conan Doyle’s imagination. The writer placed his fingertips on the weathered mahogany surface. As a doctor, he had often felt for a patient’s pulse with just such a gesture. What lingering trace of genius might still be detected by those with a gift for divination? Although he believed passionately in a spiritual afterlife, he sadly lacked the sensitive’s nature and could not make contact unaided.

Conan Doyle showed great interest in the number of books dealing with spiritism, but expressed disappointment on discovering that by and large they were written by antagonistic critics. “You certainly have all the nay-sayers,” he chided with a gentle smile. “Have you no room for statements of belief?”

Houdini frowned, unwilling to acknowledge any deficiency in his library. “Not everything has been properly cataloged. There are many crates of books still stored in the basement. Upstairs, in my study, I keep a collection of holograph letters. Perhaps you’ll find them more intriguing. I’ve many by Lincoln; also, Edmund Kean, Jenny Lind, Disraeli … many others.”

“Anything by spiritualists?”

“Of course … Ira Davenport. D. D. Home.”

“Home, you say: By Jove, I’d be keen to have a look at those.”

“Your wish is my command, Sir Arthur. Please follow me.” Houdini led the way out of the library, grinning like a schoolboy.

On the second-floor landing, a peculiar piece of furniture caught Sir Arthur’s eye. A sturdy oaken chair, extremely worn, with sweat-stained leather straps hanging from the arms, legs, and back. He had seen a similar contrivance once before, nearly ten years ago, on the eve of the war, when he made a tour of Sing Sing Prison as the guest of Warden Clancy.

“Ah-hah!” Houdini cried, noting the author’s curiosity. “Worthy of Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors. The very first electric chair ever used at Auburn Prison. I saw it originally as a youngster at a dime museum where I was showing. When it came up at auction a few years back, I couldn’t resist the temptation.”

Sir Arthur visibly recoiled from the grotesque device, as if facing some malignant creature crouching to attack. “Odd to have such a thing in one’s home,” was his only comment. Conan Doyle remembered sitting cheerfully in the chair in the death house at Ossining back in 1914, smoking a pipe and fitting his head into the small steel cap. One thing to enjoy a bit of gallows humor; quite another to display such a hideous instrument as household decor.

The magician remained oblivious to any implied criticism. “At first, I thought to use it in my act. You know, with a time deadline like when some of your naval petty officers challenged me to escape tied to the muzzle of a cannon with a twenty-minute fuse. Twelve years ago in Chatham. A good many paid to see me blown to kingdom come. Made sense to figure I’d draw a big crowd to watch me burn.”

“A bit macabre for family entertainment, don’t you think?”

“Exactly. That’s why I dropped the idea. Used a hot seat escape as one of the cliff-hangers in ‘The Master Mystery,’ but it was just a prop.” Houdini continued on up the stairs, leading the way to the third floor. “Over seventy men died in that contraption,” he said.

The magician’s study was at the end of the hall. Sir Arthur paused along the way. Something odd about the bedroom on his right. Great gathered drapery folds suggested the Orient, as did hanging silks, carved furnishings, tasseled lamps. A candle flickered on a small shelf, illuminating the glass-framed Kodak portrait of a kindly gray-coifed matron. The same pleasant face stared out of a larger photograph resting against the cushions on the brocade-covered bed. No one lived in this room. He was gazing into a shrine.

“My beloved mother’s room.” Houdini stepped past him toward the bed. “Sometimes I come in here and lay my head down on the counterpane, just as I used to lay against her breast and listen to the beating of her heart.”

The appalling frankness of this confession was offset by the magician’s passionate sincerity and Conan Doyle, who knew himself to be also a bit of a mama’s boy, felt touched by it. “Contact is possible, you know,” he said. “Such I sincerely believe.”

“I cannot imagine a greater happiness. If willpower alone could bring her back, she would be with us now.”

“There are guides.”

“In a lifetime of searching, I never found one who wasn’t a phony.” Houdini’s manner abruptly changed. “It’s all hokum.” The mournful attitude dropped away and he marched out of the room grim with determination.

Sir Arthur followed amiably. “You must keep an open heart,” he said. “I have spoken with the Ma’am, my own cherished mother, on several occasions since she passed over.”

Houdini’s study resembled the lair of a mad alchemist. Bizarre magic show memorabilia in bright carnival colors stood among wooden filing cabinets stacked like gargantuan children’s blocks. Crates, trunks; folios crammed with posters; bound programs shelved along the walls. The chaos had an apparent order; the magician produced the Davenport and Home correspondence with a minimum of searching.

Sir Arthur examined the thick folders. Far too many letters to read in one sitting. He asked if he might come back at a more convenient time and peruse them.

“My collection is at your disposal.” Obviously pleased, Houdini made no effort to conceal a smug smile. “I also have hundreds of letters from Harry Kellar, who was with the Davenports on their first tour.”

“Thank you, but no. Kellar was a stage magician. I mean no offense when I say I am interested only in the genuine article, not a trickster merely duplicating the effects of a séance.”

“Why, Sir Arthur, I am nothing but a trickster, yet I have always been keenly aware of your interest in me.”

The briefest moment of recognition ignited when their eyes met and they looked beyond the common ground of achievement and genius into the comic heart of human folly. Both men laughed, sharing the unspoken joke. They didn’t know one another well enough to be comfortable with such informality and the mirth soon subsided into more familiar postures.

“Depend upon it, my dear Houdini, my admiration for you goes far beyond an appreciation of your conjuring abilities.” Sir Arthur stood, legs spread, arms behind his back, like an officer at parade rest; like a rugby coach embarking on a pep talk. “I am convinced, above all your protests, that you possess supernormal powers. I have the testimony of Mr. Hewat Mackenzie, one of the most experienced psychical researchers in the world, that when he stood near to you on stage, during an escape from a padlocked iron milk can filled with water, he clearly felt a great loss of physical energy of the sort experienced by sitters in materializing séances. I accept this as evidence of your ability to dematerialize.”

Houdini was at a loss for words. How could this great man of letters believe such bunk? Further proof that the better a man’s education and the more impressive his brain, the easier it became to mystify him. The milk-can escape was a gag. Dash still featured it in his act. It pained him to think anyone he so respected could be such a sucker. “I give you my word of honor. The escape you mention was a trick.”

“Then what about the time you escaped from regulation handcuffs at Scotland Yard? That was no stage presentation.”

“All right. I’ll tell you about it. I’ve published most of my handcuff secrets.” Houdini lifted a heavy crate off a steamer trunk. He made it look easy. “It was my first trip to London. Spring of 1900. I was trying to get a booking at the Alhambra. Dundas Slater, the theater manager, liked my audition, but as it was a challenge act …” Houdini opened the trunk lid. Hundreds of jumbled manacles and handcuffs glittered inside like a pirate’s treasure chest. “He suggested in an off-hand manner that Scotland Yard might be the most infallible test of my skill.”

“And you accepted immediately!” Sir Arthur beamed with boyish playing-field enthusiasm.

“I came prepared to demand that exact challenge.”

“Because you knew you possessed the power to dematerialize.”

“Because I knew a little secret about the darbies used by Scotland Yard.” The magician showed a sturdy pair of handcuffs to Sir Arthur. “Jersey Giants. See the broad arrow and crown. That marks ‘em all. They have a simple spring lock. My study of the mechanism revealed a strategic flaw.” Taking the knight’s hand, Houdini quickly snapped the cuff shut on his wrist.

“I say … ,” protested Sir Arthur.

“I discovered if Jersey Giants were tapped sharply at a certain point …” Houdini locked Conan Doyle’s other wrist. “… against a hard surface, they would simply snap open. The morning of the Alhambra audition, before putting on my trousers, I strapped a sheet of lead to my thigh. It proved an unnecessary precaution at the Yard, as Superintendent Melville shackled my hands behind my back around a stone pillar. He said: ‘This is the way we handle Yankees who come over here and get into trouble.’ He then suggested to Slater that they return in an hour and release me.

“I said, ‘I’ll come with you.’ One good knock and I was free. Slater signed me on the spot.”

Sir Arthur stared uncertainly at his manacled wrists. “I hope you have the key.”

“No need.” Houdini showed him the critical point on the mechanism. “Go ahead. Rap ‘em hard against the edge of the desk.”

“Like this…?” Sir Arthur brought his wrists down smartly against the desktop. The handcuffs popped open as if by magic.

“Simple, when you know the trick.” The magician flourished his fingers and plucked a silver half-dollar out of midair.

“Skillful conjuring is an excellent distraction.” The knight dropped the Scotland Yard darbies back into the trunk. “Focuses attention away from your true psychic powers.”

Houdini shrugged. “Nothing I can say will set you straight. I have prepared a mysterious entertainment for later this evening. The supernatural is not involved. Everything I do is the result of preparation, practice, knowledge, study, more practice, and physical abilities of an extreme sort. Maybe a little curtain-raiser might convince you.”

Houdini sat in his desk chair, hooking his arms over the back. “Let’s assume my hands are tied behind me. In my line of work, you gotta be able to use more than hands.”

Astonished, Sir Arthur watched Houdini slip out of one shoe and sock, deftly untying the other shoelace with his toes. Second shoe off, the nimble toes of both feet went to work retying the shoelace in a neat bow.

“Absolutely amazing!”

“No, Sir Arthur, this is amazing.” The magician lifted his right leg into the air, bending it toward him, contorting like a yogi adept. When it seemed impossible a human limb could twist any farther, the foot arched down and slipped into his outside jacket pocket. It reemerged in a graceful uncoiling, a needle-book and spool of thread gripped between his toes.

Must never go anywhere without those props, Sir Arthur thought. Always prepared to perform on popular demand.

Houdini dropped the needles and thread on the floor between his feet. Sir Arthur watched in wonder, scarcely able to believe his own eyes as the magician removed a needle from the folded paper and carefully threaded it with his toes.

“Capital!” cried the excited knight.

“Purely physical.” Houdini bounded to his feet like a prizefighter coming out of his corner. “My body is a trained instrument. Given time to prepare, I can withstand any blow.” The magician braced his legs, thrusting out his chest. “Go on. Hit me. I’m ready. Hit me as hard as you can.”

“You can’t be serious?”

“Go on… . Give it your best shot.”

Sir Arthur placed his hands behind his back. “I used to be quite keen about boxing. Grand sport. Wouldn’t want to sully it with this sort of foolishness.”

“Okay …” Houdini relaxed his stance. “It was just meant as a demonstration. Wanted to show you what the physical body was capable of. Watch this. Learned it as a kid in the carny.”

Arching backwards, limber as a dancer, Houdini bent all the way to the floor and picked the threaded needle off the carpet with his teeth. Snake-supple, he returned upright. “Worked as an acrobat, tumbler, contortionist… . Watched an Indian fakir do this.” The magician thrust the needle through his cheek.