Houdini turned. The man put on the handcuffs, high on his forearms so that his arms were jammed together at a strange angle. It looked very cruel to me. I could see them digging into Houdini’s flesh, but he didn’t complain or even make any comment.

“Right, let’s see you get out of that,” the man said with satisfaction.

Houdini wriggled and jiggled and shook his shoulders a bit. He turned away from the audience, then back again. Suddenly there was a clatter and the handcuffs fell to the floor. Houdini picked them up and handed them to the visibly shaken man.

“Really, Cunning, I’m surprised at you. I thought you could come up with something better than that. Even my dear Bess could escape from those.” He turned to her and she came back with his shirt and coat, helping him to dress.

The man left the stage to catcalls. “There you go, fellows,” Houdini said to the audience. “If you plan to commit a crime, then I suggest Chicago. You’d be out of their handcuffs in no time at all.”

As the fellow magician departed one fact clicked into place in my head—something that had been bothering me while I had watched the act. The other voice I had heard speaking in low tones in that hallway had been Houdini’s.

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.