The trick wasn’t as dangerous as it appeared. The locks were for show—the entire top third of the can came off. It was held in place with false rivets, which were easy enough to undo from inside. There was a bit of air available at the top of the can—the lid was slightly rounded, allowing enough air for a couple of breaths if necessary.
In 1912 he added the Water Torture Cell. In it he was hung upside down in what amounted to an oversized coffin with a see-through front. As with the Milk Can, a curtain concealed the apparatus from the audience at the key moment. An assistant would stand at the side of the stage with a fire axe as a safety feature. The key to the trick was for him to take long enough that people wondered if something had gone wrong but not too long that it was obvious in hindsight he’d been drawing it out.
One night in the fall of 1912 he was reading at home. He’d bought a four-storey brownstone in Harlem, a truly magnificent house, for him and Bess and his mother. On the third floor was his study and library, with what he imagined was the world’s most comprehensive collection of literature relating to magic and spiritualism. He’d had to hire a librarian to catalogue it all.
For weeks after they’d first moved in, his mother would wander from room to room, not touching anything for fear it might break. “Such a house,” she whispered. “I never could have imagined it.”
It was late that night, just after eleven, and everyone else had gone to bed. A stack of letters on his desk awaited his reply, and numerous other tasks required his attention. He was just about to put down his book when he heard a knock at the door.
It was unusual for anyone to call this late, but his life was an unusual one. As he descended the stairs, however, whoever was outside knocked again, and he froze with four steps to go. He knew that knock.
It had been nine years since he’d seen Grigoriev. Sure enough, there he was, dressed in black, his hair and moustache impeccably trimmed.
He nodded to Houdini and looked inside. Houdini hesitated—they weren’t in Russia anymore. He should shut the door and send him packing. But instead he stepped aside and motioned for him to enter.
“What an interesting door,” Grigoriev said as Houdini bolted the lock.
Houdini had altered the door so that it opened on what appeared to be the hinged side. It was one of many small but intriguing modifications he’d made since moving in.
“This is a magician’s house.”
They exchanged cursory pleasantries, Houdini took Grigoriev’s coat, and they went into the sitting room. Houdini brought Grigoriev a glass of wine, and water for himself. Grigoriev sipped his wine and took in his surroundings.
“My wife decorated this room,” Houdini said.
“She has excellent taste.” Grigoriev picked at a speck of lint on his sleeve and placed his glass on the side table. He looked directly at Houdini.
“I need your help.”
Houdini stared back at him. “I cannot come to Russia. I cannot advise the czar on matters of the spirit.”
Grigoriev shook his head. “I’m afraid that even if you wished to do so it is no longer possible. The swindler who has taken that position will be the ruin of us all.”
Houdini sat back. He’d heard the man’s name mentioned by a few magicians. Their opinion was that he was of questionable ability.
“Grigory Rasputin poses as a holy man and a healer, but I believe, as do others, that he is interested only in power.”
In 1905 Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich Romanov had been assassinated on his way to the Kremlin. His head was blown off his body. Grand Duchess Elizabeth had renounced her titles and worldly possessions and entered a convent.
“And who are you working for now?” Houdini asked.
“I am under the employ of Grand Duke Alexander. His daughter, Irina, is married to Prince Felix Yusupov. Perhaps you remember him. But there are others in the Romanov family who feel the same as Grand Duke Sergei did. I represent them all.”
Houdini smiled. He remembered Felix Yusupov and Grand Duke Dimitri at Kleinmichel Palace. His smile faded when he realized that he was on the verge of being drawn back into a sphere of intrigue he had no desire to inhabit.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” he said.
Grigoriev said nothing. He retrieved his wineglass, then set it back down. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet. “I give you my word that nothing you tell me will make its way to either Wilkie or Melville.”
Houdini was unable to prevent a look of surprise.
“You must remember that we are all technically allies,” Grigoriev said. “Melville has long-standing ties in Russia with the Okhrana. No one likes Wilkie, but the anarchists who killed President McKinley also killed Czar Alexander II and tried to kill Queen Victoria. It behooves them to work together on occasion.”
“How did you know I was working for them?”
“How is it you think a Jew got into Russia undetected? My meeting you was no coincidence, Mr. Houdini. It was my job.”
Houdini took a long sip of his water. Grigoriev was risking much with what he had just revealed. Wilkie wouldn’t be pleased with this conversation.
“What do you want from me?”
“I need to expose Rasputin. Many people do not give him enough credit. He has been exceptionally difficult to trap in deceit.”
Houdini considered Grigoriev’s proposal. Rasputin was trading on the czarina’s worry for her son, using her fear and desire to gain power. This was far worse than what he had done to Harold Osbourne that night in Garnett, Kansas.
“I’ll help you as best I can. Tell me everything you can about him.”
By the end of the day Houdini had managed to teach the recruits enough that they at least stood a chance if they ended up in the water or were captured. That night he sat in his study and read a letter from Harry Kellar, Robinson’s former employer.
Please, Houdini, listen to your old friend Kellar who loves you as his own son and don’t do it.
These were the final words of his letter. Houdini set the paper down and picked up a gun. It was a percussion lock muzzle-loader, an ornate but outdated firearm with an ivory-inlaid stock. He turned it over in his hands, running his fingers along the polished wood of the stock and the cold smooth steel of the barrel.
The gun had been modified for the bullet catch in the exact manner as William Robinson had altered his rifles. Houdini had tested the gun dozens of times in the past week and could detect no flaw in the system. It should have been foolproof.
A great many magicians had begun to work for the government beginning in 1916. As Wilkie had known all along, the skills of a magician and the skills of a spy were nearly identical. Through the Society of American Magicians, Houdini had, against his better judgment, actively recruited a number of magicians into service at the command of Wilkie. Most of them were involved in training troops, code breaking, and rather mundane deceptions, but some of them did the sort of work he had done for men like Wilkie and Melville. Harry Kellar wasn’t one of them, but very little happened without Kellar’s knowing about it.
And now this letter from Kellar. Houdini set down the gun and picked the letter back up. It read as a warning and it was, but not exactly as it appeared. It was a coded answer to his coded message. And its message was clear. William Robinson, aka Chung Ling Soo, had been murdered.
Grigoriev and Houdini talked all night. At dawn Houdini went upstairs and retrieved an armload of books. They contained all the information Grigoriev would require. Almost every trick, illusion, technique, and principle had been exhaustively described in some book or other, dating back nearly a hundred years. If a person was willing to go to the effort and expense, there were very few actual secrets out there. Grigoriev was willing to do the work, and he was obviously clever.
When morning came and Grigoriev left, Houdini went upstairs and slept for four hours, waking at ten. When he went downstairs his mother, Cecilia, was still not out of bed.
“She’s not well,” Bess said to him.
Houdini smiled. “She’s fine. She’s getting a little older, and she’s learned to rest more. It’s a good thing.”
But it was not a good thing, and over the coming months her health deteriorated even more. Bess tried to look after her, but Cecilia wouldn’t hear of it. “It is I who should be looking after you, dear girl. You and Ehrie have given me so much.” She eventually allowed Houdini to hire a girl to help her, and he consulted every doctor he could find, but they all told him the same thing. She was seventy-two and had persistent stomach problems. Her hard life was catching up with her. “Pfft,” she would say to them. “My life has not been hard.”
Houdini had accepted a booking in Europe, during which he would perform a show for the king of Sweden and the Danish royal family. He delayed it as much as possible but eventually couldn’t put it off any longer.
The morning of his departure his mother was uncharacteristically sombre.
“My feet are cold. They’re always cold,” she said.
Houdini took her feet in his hands and rubbed as much warmth into them as he could. “I’ll buy you a pair of the finest slippers in Europe.”
“You’re a good boy. You’ve always been a good boy. Even when you weren’t.”
Houdini hired an extra car to take Cecilia and other assorted family members to the pier from where his ship was departing. He repeatedly boarded and then left the boat so as to give her one more kiss, until she finally told him to stay on the ship.
“You hear that, everyone? My own mother tells me to go!”
Those nearby laughed, and his mother blushed. “Ehrie! What did you tell them?” Despite being in America for more than thirty-five years she had never learned English.
Houdini ran back up the gangplank, and then tossed his mother one of the streamers that were flying from the ship. “Hold on, Mother,” he cried, and for the first time in years felt almost like a child.
His brother Dash caught the other end of the streamer and handed it to her. “Size six. Don’t forget!” They both held on until the ship pulled away and the streamer broke in two.
He arrived in Hamburg eight days later and took a train to Copenhagen. He barely had time to check into his hotel and then rush to the theatre. Bess stayed behind, tired from the journey. Before he went onstage, an assistant handed him a telegram but he was too busy to deal with it and put it in his pocket.
At the reception following the show he began to feel feverish and light-headed. He excused himself and went to the washroom to splash some cold water on his face; he decided it was best if he left as soon as possible. He had just returned to the reception when he remembered the telegram. He opened it and read the contents. The world went black.
When he awoke he was on the floor with people crowded around him. His head throbbed and his throat felt like he’d actually swallowed needles. For a brief instant he forgot the contents of the telegram. Then he remembered.
“My dear mother. Poor Mama.” Tears coursed down his cheeks, and he resisted all attempts to help him up.
The telegram was from his brother Dash. He could not believe it. It seemed impossible. She was not a young woman, he knew that, but the idea of a world that did not have his mother in it was unfathomable. How could this be?
He didn’t say another word, just lay on the floor crying. One by one people left the room, and still he didn’t move. He saw his mother baking pies in their house in Appleton when he was a boy. He saw her in the house in Harlem, smiling as he showed it to her for the first time. And he saw her holding one end of a paper streamer, connected to him by the thinnest of strands, disappearing into the distance.
Bess sat down on the floor beside him. Someone must have sent for her. She didn’t say anything for a while. He stared at the ceiling and she smoothed his hair off his forehead.
“What am I going to do now?” he asked her.
She stood up and reached down to take his hand. “Let’s go home.”
“I can’t get up.”
Bess tried to pull him to his feet but couldn’t. She rushed out of the room and returned with help, and it took two men to help him up. With their assistance he made it to a waiting car, and then to his hotel. He collapsed into bed and a doctor was sent for. Houdini passed in and out of consciousness, waking to fits of racking pain. He couldn’t tell how much was grief and how much was physical. Maybe they were the same thing.
“Wire Dash,” he called to Bess, his voice weak and rasping. “Tell him not to bury Mama until I can come home.”
At some point the doctor arrived and examined him. “He needs to be hospitalized,” he heard the doctor say from the other room. He had passed out again during the examination.
“Absolutely not. I need to return home at once.”
Bess closed the door. He couldn’t make out their words, but he could tell that the conversation was heated. There was a tone to Bess’s voice that he recognized. She was strong when she needed to be, stronger than he. He wondered when he had forgotten that.
The door opened and Bess came in. She sat on the edge of the bed and took his hand. “He says you have chronic kidney disease.”
Houdini smirked. “If I had a nickel for every doctor who has told me I was sick or injured we could’ve retired years ago.”
“Get out of bed.”
He knew he couldn’t do it, and so did she.
“We’re going home. A doctor will accompany us, and you will do exactly as he says. I’ve taken care of everything.”
Bess lay down beside him and he listened to her breathing. He thought about his mother, whom he would never see or talk to again.
“I wish I were someone’s mother,” Bess said.
They had not spoken of this in a long time.
“You’d have been a terrific mother,” he said. But was this true? He loved her, but she could be difficult, she could be irrational. Bess would not have been a bad mother, he thought, but maybe she would not have been a good one either.
And what of him as a father? He was no better than Bess. He knew he was arrogant, quick to anger, impulsive, and selfish. That didn’t necessarily mean he was a bad person or would be a bad father. But there was something deeper. At times he didn’t know what parts of him were real and what parts of him had been made up in order to become Harry Houdini.
“Maybe it’s not too late,” Bess said. “Maybe we could still adopt a child.”
He barely heard her. The one person who fully understood him was dead. He closed his eyes and hoped he would not dream that night.
The next day he was well enough to stand, and he had Bess take him to the finest shop in Copenhagen before their ship left. He bought a pair of lamb’s-wool slippers, size six. Back in New York, ten days later, he went straight home where his mother lay in the parlour, dressed for burial, looking more peaceful than he’d ever seen her. He removed her shoes and placed the slippers on her feet. He then sat in a chair at the foot of her coffin and did not budge until the next day when they buried her next to his father.
“Go ahead, shoot me.”
Bess stood fifteen feet from him with the gun pointed at his chest. Houdini had his hands cuffed in front of him and a blindfold on.
“I don’t want to.” Bess stepped forward and lowered the gun.
“Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”
“No, it won’t. Don’t talk to me like I don’t understand why you’re doing this. Don’t treat me like I’m falling for your act.”
A little light shone through his blindfold, but he couldn’t see much. They were on the stage of the New York Hippodrome, rehearsing for that night’s show. He’d had the house cleared, demanding secrecy, and it was strange to be alone with Bess in this cavernous room that was usually humming with activity. She was right. It was all an act. William Robinson was a great actor playing a great magician. When he had performed as himself, he was wooden. But as Chung Ling Soo he was graceful, funny, magnificent, without ever speaking a word.
“I’ve checked
and double-checked everything,” he said to Bess. “You know how the trick works. It’s safe. It’s safer than most of the other things I do.”
“I don’t care.”
“Pull the trigger.”
“No.”
“Please, Bess. I can get one of the assistants to do it, but you’re the only one I trust completely.”
“Do you? That’s great. Lucky me. Here’s the thing, though—I don’t trust you completely.”
Houdini pulled off the blindfold and slammed the handcuffs against his leg, where a piece of lead was sewn into the fabric of his trousers. They clattered to the floor. He took the gun from Bess, pointed it at the footlights, and fired. Bess yelped, flinching, and he dropped the gun onto the ground.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He had resolved to control his temper better, especially around Bess, and once again he’d failed.
“You’re always sorry, and I don’t care.”
Bess turned around and slowly walked off the stage. Houdini picked up the gun and turned it over in his hands. The bullet was still loaded, just as he knew it would be.
In the weeks following his mother’s death he could barely function. He stayed home and didn’t receive visitors. Some days he read in his library, and more and more he found himself drawn to the volumes on spiritualism. He felt his mother’s absence as a clutching yearning. He began to wonder if it was possible he had been wrong. He knew that everything the so-called mediums did could be replicated by an even half-competent magician, but that didn’t necessarily invalidate their claims. Was it possible he could speak to his mother again?
He resolved to make an appointment with a reputed medium named Kenneth Gaston. He dyed his hair grey and put on glasses and a false moustache. It was a disguise he’d used before, and he was certain he wouldn’t be recognized.
Kenneth Gaston held his séances in a well-appointed house in New Jersey. Houdini waited in a drawing room with six other people, two men and four women. He caught each of them sizing him up when they thought he wasn’t looking. Two of them once attempted to engage him in conversation, but he refused to say much beyond giving them a name, Erik, and saying he had come from New York.