The Confabulist (26 page)

“Miss!” he called to her after a block. She was walking quickly,
not looking back. When she heard him she walked faster, and he had to break into a run to catch up to her.

“I have a gun,” she said, turning to face him.

“That’s great,” he said. “If you did what I think you did tonight, you’re going to need one.”

In all the years since his first encounter with Rose Mackenberg the evening that Joseph Davidson was exposed she had never once been late or forgotten anything. If she was late there was a good reason.

She had not been carrying a gun that night, after all, and despite his subsequent attempts to convince her, she still refused to arm herself. Houdini felt comforted by the slight but significant weight of the derringer in his inside jacket pocket. He didn’t like guns—they were crude and artless—but that’s what the world had become.

A car slowed in front of his house but didn’t stop, instead continuing down the street and turning south down Eighth Avenue toward the park.

He heard footsteps behind him. Bess, in her nightgown, stood in the doorway. She rubbed her eyes, trying to wake herself.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I have some business to attend to.” His tone was harsher than he’d intended it.

She was awake now. “What kind of business?” Her voice was equally curt.

“It doesn’t matter. There are some files in the basement that I need to move.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“There’s a bit of a situation.” He tried to sound conciliatory.

“We’re supposed to be at the train station at seven, and you’ve promised you’ll rest more.”

He had indeed promised her this, but circumstances had seemed to prevent rest at every opportunity. And now he had no choice. Everything had been set in motion and there was nothing to do but follow through.

“I’m sorry. This won’t take long,” he said. “Rose will be here with her car any moment.”

“Something’s happened.”

Houdini paused. He didn’t want her to know how much danger she was in. “It will be fine.”

Bess shook her head. “No, I don’t think it will. You tell me very little about what you’re doing with these spiritualists, and you think that will protect me. But what you’ve done can’t be taken back.”

She crossed the room, shuffling her feet on the floor like a child. She raised herself to her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Be careful,” she said, and he could hear fear in her voice. She turned and padded out. Her footsteps receded up the stairs and he turned back to the street.

After the Davidson séance Houdini had sent Sir Arthur a long letter detailing what had happened. Doyle was not deterred—that one medium had been exposed didn’t alter the fundamental truth. Houdini then sent Doyle a photograph of him posed with Abraham Lincoln, along with an explanation of how the photograph was produced. Again Doyle was undeterred. He almost seemed annoyed at Houdini’s insistence on pointing out the facts.

In 1922 Doyle came to America for a speaking tour. Crowds
showed up to hear about Sherlock Holmes, but Doyle was more eager to talk about spiritualism. Houdini continued to portray himself as ready to be convinced.

Houdini invited Sir Arthur and Lady Doyle over for lunch and demonstrated the usual tricks that mediums employed, but none of it convinced Doyle. Even when Houdini pretended to pull his thumb from his hand, Doyle was mystified like a child.

Houdini continued his efforts. If he could make Doyle see the truth, then the whole house of cards would come fluttering down. With this in mind he accepted Doyle’s invitation for himself and Bess to join the Doyles in Atlantic City for the weekend.

The first night was pleasant enough. The four of them had dinner, after which Bess and Lady Doyle went to a casino while Houdini and Doyle strolled the boardwalk. Doyle was preoccupied with talk of spirit hands, which Houdini knew was a cheap trick using paraffin wax, but he said nothing. This was not the issue on which to confront him.

When they returned from the walk and met up with their wives, Lady Doyle gave a slight, almost undetectable nod, and Doyle smiled faintly. Houdini had seen that look before, either between two cardsharps or between a magician and his assistant.

Back in their room, Houdini asked Bess what she and Lady Doyle had spoken about.

“Nothing much. We talked about your mother and Sir Arthur’s mother.”

“What did you tell her? Specifically?”

Bess put down her hairbrush. “Why do you want to know? They’re a bit wacky, but they’re entirely nice people. Not everything has to be about your crusades.”

“Something’s not right. They’re up to something.”

“I told them you loved your mother. That you bought her expensive clothes and when you were upset she would hold your head to her chest so you could hear her heartbeat. If that’s nefarious, then you’re a better Sherlock than his character.”

He smiled. Bess had no idea how right she was.

The next evening after dinner, Houdini and Bess were sitting on the beach enjoying the dying light when he saw the lumbering figure of Doyle approaching, being led by a young boy. Doyle tipped the boy once he saw Houdini, and then walked up to them. He was hesitant in a way Houdini had never observed in him before.

“Good evening, Harry, Bess.”

“Indeed it is,” Bess replied, shielding her eyes as though there were a bright light shining into them, though there was not.

“I apologize for the intrusion, but my wife is most insistent. She would like to invite you, Houdini, to our room for a reading. She feels that the conditions are most excellent.”

He was surprised that the invitation had come so soon. “Are you sure?” he said, doing his best to sound excited.

Bess looked at him. “I’m afraid I’m tired this evening,” she said, knowing he was pretending. “Could we possibly do this another evening?”

Doyle dug his shoe into the sand and stared down at it as though it contained some great secret. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Houdini, but my wife’s invitation extends only to your husband. Were there to be two people there of such similar mind as yourself and your husband it would affect the energy of the room and possibly the reading. I hope you’ll forgive us for this.”

It was all Houdini could do to stifle a laugh, but Bess managed to hide her irritation. “Of course. It will be hours before my husband goes to sleep—he rarely sleeps at all, it seems.”

The three of them walked back to the hotel, parting outside the Houdinis’ suite. “Good night, gentlemen,” Bess said, kissing him on the cheek.

When they arrived at the Doyles’ suite, Lady Doyle was waiting, seated in a chair. Her eyes were closed, and it was only after they were inside and the door was shut that she opened them.

The room was lit by a half-dozen candles, and the curtains were drawn. Doyle motioned to a chair at her left, and Houdini sat in it. Doyle remained standing, directly behind his wife.

She looked at Houdini, her eyes wide. He stared back at her, careful to betray nothing. She placed a small writing tablet and sheaf of paper in her lap.

Doyle bowed his head. “Almighty, we are grateful to you for this new revelation, this breaking down of the walls between two worlds. We thirst for another undeniable message from the beyond, another call of hope and guidance to the human race at this, the time of its greatest affliction. Can we receive another sign from our friends?” There was a seriousness, a piety about him, that Houdini could not help but admire.

Doyle reached down and placed his hands on Lady Doyle’s, as though translating a sacrament onto her. She remained completely still. Houdini felt a tension building in him, even as he chastised himself for succumbing to her showmanship.

Lady Doyle’s head snapped downward, and she grabbed hold of a pencil and slammed the heel of her hand against her leg.

“This is the most profound energy I’ve ever been presented with,” she said, her voice strained as though she were lifting a heavy object. “Do you believe in God?”

Houdini understood that she was inquiring this of the spirit so as to discern whether or not it was malevolent. Lady Doyle struck her hand on her leg three times, as if to answer the question.

“Then I will make the sign of the cross.” She drew a large cross on the top of the paper, and then, as though seized by a force outside of herself, began to write page after page of frenzied transcription.

“Who is standing here, alongside Houdini?” Doyle asked. “Is it his mother?”

Lady Doyle again hit her hand three times against her leg. Houdini was at once filled with both rage and joy. He knew they were playing him, but what if he was wrong? What if his mother was really there, about to speak to him? He felt a sliver of hope wedge its way into him.

Doyle placed his hands on Lady Doyle’s shoulders, gently rubbing them, as though trying to mollify the spirit that was controlling her. He then reached down and began handing Houdini the papers on which his wife had been scrawling.

You have answered the cry of my heart—and of his. God bless him a thousandfold for all his life and for me. Never has a mother had such a son. Tell him not to grieve, soon he’ll get all the evidence he is so anxious for. Tell him I want him to try to write at his own home. He is so, so dear to me. I am preparing so sweet a home for him which one day in God’s good time he will come to
.

I am so happy in this life. My only shadow has been that my beloved one hasn’t known how often I have been with him. He gave me so much in my life, beyond the fine clothes and an apron full of gold. He may no longer be able to hear the beating of my heart but I am still with him
.

It is so different over here, so much larger and bigger and more beautiful. So lofty. Sweetness all around one. Nothing that hurts and we see our beloved ones on earth. Tell him I love him more than ever. His goodness fills my soul with gladness and thankfulness. I want him to know only that, that I have bridged the gulf. Now I can rest in peace
.

Lady Doyle collapsed. Sir Arthur helped her up, prying the pencil from her hand. Houdini still held the papers in his hands. He didn’t know what to do. It was not real. He knew this. But he was stunned. These words were the words he longed to hear. There was nothing he wanted more in the world, even if they were false.

“She wants a grandchild.” Lady Doyle’s voice was weak, but he heard her with absolute clarity.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your mother. She said to tell you to consider Bess’s request, that there is no shame in adoption.”

Doyle and his wife exchanged a brief look. He knew this look, because he had exchanged it with Bess many times during his act. The look said, “You are going too far.”

He wanted to smash every last thing in the room into splinters. He wanted to squeeze the life out of Doyle and his wife. He stood, shook Doyle’s hand, and walked out of the room.

“Houdini! Wait!” Doyle called. He went downstairs and through the lobby of the hotel, out onto the boardwalk, where he looked at the lights of the hotels and casinos, watched the people walking by. For
a long time he stared, not caring when the occasional person recognized him.

His mother would never have been pacified by the sign of the cross. She was a Jew, devout until the moment of her death. She spoke no English whatsoever, and none of her patterns of speech were present in the words. She said nothing of her husband and failed to mention that today was her birthday.

He could not believe that Bess had told Lady Doyle that she had asked him to consider adoption. It had never occurred to him that Bess would discuss their marriage with anyone else. If he couldn’t trust Bess, he was finished.

His stupor began to break. Doyle had tried to deceive him. He had played on his deepest hopes and desires. For what purpose he didn’t yet know, but it didn’t matter. Sir Arthur was no Sherlock Holmes. If anything he was a Moriarty.

He turned back to the hotel. A plan was forming. Only now did he fully understand what he himself had done to Harold Osbourne all those years ago. There was nothing genuine to be found with these people. They were magicians without consent. They were grave robbers, but they weren’t interested in the corpse. They took what was true and real in life, and put something of their own in its place. They stole from the dead their memory in the living. He could not imagine a more horrible thing.

He had been wrong to give Doyle, or anyone else, the benefit of doubt. He knew how they did every cheap trick, every graft, every lie. He would expose them all for the frauds they were. He would become their strongest enemy.

When he returned to New York, he tracked down Rose Mackenberg. He met her in a diner, in disguise, and made his proposition.

“Why do you want to do this?” she asked.

“For the same reason you do it,” he said. “They’re lying to people.”

“That’s not why I do it.”

“Then why?”

She took a drink of her coffee, thick as mud. “I believed in them once, like others. My sister died, and medium after medium promised me a chance to speak to her again. But it was never right. Eventually I saw what was happening, how they were using my grief against me.”

“They did the same thing to me with my mother.”

“All right, I’ll work with you. I have conditions.”

“Name them.”

“My methods are my own. I am not a magician, but I have ways of accomplishing what needs to be done. I don’t need anyone telling me how to operate.”

“That’s fine.”

“There will be expenses. I’ll try to keep them down as much as possible, but to do what you suggest is beyond my means. I trust that you will cover these expenses?”

“Spare no cost, Rose.”

She folded her napkin and placed it on the table. “This last one is a deal breaker. You will, at no time, make any romantic advances toward me. If you do, I will immediately leave your employ.”

Houdini feigned surprise. She was shrewd, he thought. He’d been admiring the smoothness of her neck, wondering if she would be as businesslike and matter-of-fact in bed. “I can assure you I would do nothing of the kind.”