Mrs. Houdini(35)

But Harry’s excitement was infectious. Dr. Steeves had told him that he had a possible new idea for an escape trick, only he wouldn’t tell him what it was.

The institution was set back from the road, near a lake, on freshly manicured grounds. It seemed to Bess, from the outside, to be more of a hotel than a hospital, except for the bars on the windows. The sun was shining on the red bricks, and she slid her hand into Harry’s as they waited at the front entrance.

They were greeted by Dr. Steeves, who was flushed with eagerness. He ushered them past the nurses’ station and the recreation room, and through a long corridor of patient rooms. Some of the doors were partially ajar, and Bess could see the shadows of the patients moving about inside the rooms. Finally, she caught a glimpse of one of the patients in the flesh; it was a woman about her age, her dark hair pulled loosely from her face, sitting still by the window, staring out at the lawn. A vision of the woman as a child, playing with a doll in a railway car, flashed before her eyes. She wasn’t sure whether it was based in any truth, but it made Bess alarmingly sad. She was not quite sure what separated a woman like that from one like her; did one see madness coming, she wondered, or did it come quietly, like a thief at night? She shivered. She would rather die than lose her mind.

At the end of the corridor was one final door, which looked to Bess just like all the others. But when Dr. Steeves unlocked it, he stepped in front of them and held up his hand. “Stay back,” he warned. “This patient is quite dangerous.”

Inside, the room was completely padded in cream-colored canvas. There were no windows, and it was stiflingly quiet, except for the panting of a man rolling about on the floor.

“My God!” Harry cried, horrified. “What is that?”

The man was wearing what appeared to be a normal jacket, except the sleeves were exceptionally long, and they were wrapped once around the man’s torso and tied behind his back. Bess had never seen anything like it. She grabbed Harry’s arm. He had used restraint muffs in his act before, but never anything like this. The man on the ground was straining every muscle in his body, but he could not get loose. His legs were jerking wildly, desperately, underneath him, and his forehead was dripping with sweat.

“It’s called a straitjacket,” Dr. Steeves remarked proudly. “It’s impossible to get free of it.”

Bess could see the flicker of eagerness in Harry’s eyes at the word impossible.

“Can I borrow one?” he asked the doctor.

By the end of the week he had perfected the new trick, and the cigarettes were pouring onto the stage. Harry played up his experience in the asylum, making the patients out to be criminally inclined, dangerous men, and the feat he was accomplishing onstage seemed all the more daring because of it. But Bess could not forget how that young girl sat stick-still in her chair by the window, looking out onto the Alabama fields and thinking of God knows what life she’d had, or who had loved her once.



“We have just recently become aware of a tragic situation in this good town of De Land, Illinois,” Harry began. Bess, in a dress of cream-colored lace, sat blindfolded in a chair beside him. “A man who walked in these very streets beside you has only recently been found murdered.”

After a few months on the circuit, Harry had tired of the Metamorphosis. Bess, longing for a break from the physical exertion, came up with a new angle. She began to notice how many people lingered after the show, wondering if Harry was somehow working actual magic. They were longing, she saw, for something real. Possessing true knowledge made them more than players on the stage; it made them powerful. She asked Welsh to begin billing them as “Celebrated Clairvoyants” and saying they could communicate freely with the dead.

They worked on the trick together. Whenever they stopped in a new town, Harry paid a visit to the local cemetery, asking about recent deaths, while Bess disguised herself and gossiped with women at church teas. In the small towns where the circus pitched its tents, it was easy to learn the local rumors. Everyone knew everyone’s business, a phenomenon that astounded Bess and Harry, having come from a place as large as New York City.

By now, the Houdinis’ audiences had swelled to the hundreds. Word of their coming seemed to reach the small towns before the circus wagons arrived. “My wife, beside me, has the ability to speak with those we have lost,” Harry declared. Bess suddenly slumped over in her chair. “She is in a trance state,” Harry said. He rubbed his chin and feigned nervous energy. “My darling, what messages have you to give us today?”

Bess spoke in a high, unfamiliar voice. “I am looking for the killers of Benny Carter.”

“Killers?” Harry asked, alarmed. “Were there more than one?”

“Yes.”

“Were these killers known to Mr. Carter?”

“Yes.”

Harry began to pace back and forth. “Could you tell us, my dear, how this murder was accomplished?”

“With a razor.”

The audience was enthralled. Bess could hear their heavy silence, waiting for what she might say next.

“I see the blood,” she said, her voice trembling. “Oh, God!” Harry ran to her side and gripped her shoulders. Bess began throwing her body back and forth. “I can’t hold on!” she cried. “God help me, I can’t hold on!”

“Tell us their names!” Harry said. Bess didn’t answer. “What are their names?”