Mrs. Houdini(10)

In the three years since Harry’s death, the public’s fascination with Houdini’s legacy hadn’t waned; she still received thousands of letters from mediums claiming to know the message Harry had left her before he died—the message that would prove, once and for all, that it was possible for the dead to come back and speak to the living. But all of these claims had been false.

Only Bess knew how desperately Harry himself had wished to be certain of such a possibility. But none of the séances he had attended had ever convinced him. And she could never speak to anyone, not even his siblings, the truth that the great Houdini had died afraid of what was to come.

Then, two months ago, Arthur Ford had come into her tearoom. He was a man of God. She had sensed that there was something different about him. He had kissed her, and promised her honesty, and Bess was convinced that he, of all people, could contact Harry. In the end, it was she who had asked him for a séance.

Ford continued. “This is the code. It is ten words.” Bess nodded; that was correct. She pulled her white silk robe closer around her shoulders. “And it is: Rosabel. Answer. Tell. Pray. Answer. Look. Tell. Answer. Answer. Tell.” The room was completely silent, the eyes of all the witnesses focused on Bess. “He wants you to tell him whether they are right or not.”

Bess was still. “Yes,” she said at last. “Yes, they are.” There was a murmur of amazement from the witnesses.

Ford opened his eyes. “Harry smiles and says thank you. Now I can go on. He tells you to take off your wedding ring and tell them what Rosabel means.”

She had lost so much weight in her widowed years that the ring slid easily off her finger. She traced the letters engraved on the inside. She held it out, trembling, for Ford to inspect, and she heard, from somewhere long ago, the words of the song: Rosabel, sweet Rosabel, I love her more than I can tell, over me she casts a spell, my charming black-eyed Rosabel . . .

I’ll come back for you, Harry had promised. On his deathbed, he had struggled to convey a message he was unable to finish.

“And now, the words we just established—answer, tell, pray, and so on—signify another word in your code, which used common phrases or groups of phrases to indicate certain letters,” Ford’s voice went on. “And that word after Rosabel is believe. The message Harry wants to send back to you is ‘Rosabel, believe.’ Is that right?”

Bess looked at him, stunned. “Is it possible?” she whispered. “Is he really—is he really here?” The sounds of the city seemed to rush in upon her like a great wind. She could hear rain outside, sheets of it pounding on the sidewalk. “Someone close the windows, please!” she cried.

“But—they are closed,” she heard the editor’s wife say.

“Mrs. Houdini? Are you all right?” another voice asked. There was commotion in the room; chairs scraped against the floor. Someone leaned over her.

Then she heard Ford’s voice, louder than before. “He says, ‘Tell the whole world that Harry still lives!’”

Across the room, the door burst open. “What is this intrusion?” she heard Ford cry out. “What is going on?”

Bess’s eyes focused again. Her sister Stella was pushing her way through the semicircle of chairs, her hair matted with rain under a black cloche hat. She stood dripping beside Bess’s couch.

“Bess, don’t believe it!” she cried. “It’s all a hoax. This woman”—she pointed to one of the journalists—“has already sent a story to the Graphic that accuses you of faking this séance! It’s going to be the biggest scandal since the Ponzi scheme.”

Ford stood up. “What do you think you are doing?”

“Bess,” Stella urged, wringing the bottom of her dress, “Ford’s known the code all along. He didn’t get it through Harry just now. The message has already been printed in Rea Jaure’s story. And the story’s going to say that Harry and I were sleeping together, and that he told me the message, and I gave it to Ford, and you knew all along, and we’re all a bunch of fakes.”

Bess shook her head. She swung her body around to look at Ford and then back at Stella. “But—that’s impossible. That was—our private message. No one knew it but Harry and me.”

“No.” Stella shook her head. “Someone else knew. One of the nurses heard him say it in the hospital, and she sold the information to Ford.” She glared at him from across the room. “Rosabel, believe. That’s it, isn’t it?”

The editor’s wife gasped. “How could you know that? We’ve only all just heard it for the first time.”

Bess looked at Ford, her eyes steely with anger. “Is this true, Arthur? Were you just manipulating me this whole time?” She felt like a fool. How could she have been so na?ve?

Ford learned toward her and reached for her elbow. A combed-back strand of hair fell over his forehead. His eyes were wide with disbelief. And yet there was a glimmer in his voice of something she hadn’t recognized before—the overenunciated diction of a lie. “Darling, no. It’s real, I promise. Harry was here.”

“It’s all going to come out tomorrow, Bess,” Stella said.

“Everyone get out!” Bess cried. She looked at her agent. “Vernon, get them out! Get them out! I want everyone out!” She threw the covers off the couch and stood up, the neckline of her robe slipping down her shoulder. Ford reached toward her to pull the edge back up, but Bess pushed him away.