Given his mental “incident,” he could well be holding a sheet of doodles and gibberish for all I know. Smoothing it out, he explains, “Amidst my interview at the War Office, I made mention of my early aspirations for the stage. Having piqued the officer’s interest, I presented a memento normally carried in my possession.” He passes it over and watches me expectantly.

On the creased, well-worn sheet is a standard typewritten note—that much a relief—dated April 29, 1913. I get no farther than the recipient’s name before my eyes snap up.

“It’s addressed to Harry Houdini.”

A small prideful smile plays on Hutton’s lips.

“You wrote this? Did you know each other?”

He flits a hand toward the missive. “Read on,” he says, and so I do.

In the letter, Hutton proposes that his company construct, in full view of an audience, a sturdy crate to be nailed and roped shut with Houdini inside, dared to escape without demolishing the box. But the six handwritten words at the bottom of the page are the most astounding: The above CHALLENGE has been accepted.

I stare back at Hutton. “You…and he…you actually did this?”

Threading his hands on his blanketed lap, he reclines. “After a performance in Birmingham, Houdini offered a hundred pounds to any producer of a wooden box from which he would be incapable of escaping. I was in the employ of my uncle’s timber mill at the time. Assembling the packing case onstage, I believed, would eliminate any opportunity for the showman’s trickery.”

At the cliff-hanging quiet, I urge, “And? Did he make it out?”

Hutton replies with a nod, revealing his own defeat, yet I can’t help but grin.

“Precisely how this was done,” he says, “confounded me for years. That is, until Houdini revealed his method in private following a show at the Holborn Empire. You see, he bribed our top carpenter three pounds to use almost entirely short nails and to hammer them in such a way that enabled an end piece of the box to pivot. Unaware, I watched with the rest of the theater as Houdini was handcuffed and bound in a sack. Once he was secured in the box that was nailed shut and wrapped with rope, a curtain barred our view. Minutes later, he emerged to a jubilant audience, free of his bindings and without disturbing a single knot on the crate.”

As I visualize the escape, each calculated step and earned reaction, an old longing for the stage flutters through me.

“The trick was ruddy clever,” Hutton concludes, “although, I must say, scarcely his most daring.”

“Well…no. Of course not.” The performer’s published accounts are imprinted forever in my mind. “That would be his legendary act, the Upside Down. Or when he hung from a crane in a straitjacket. Better yet, his being buried alive. Or being sealed into an airtight box and tossed into the bay.”