Mrs. Houdini(78)

“My whole life, I have believed. Believe in the sacraments, my mother said, and I did. I believed. Believe we’ll be famous, Harry told me, and I did. Believe people will come see the shows. Believe Hollywood will embrace us. Believe I will come back.” Her whole body ached; she could feel herself growing older, the slight papering of her skin, the slow laboring of her heart. “But I’m tired of believing. I just want to know.”



By the time they arrived back at Charles’s house, she felt deflated.

Charles cleared his throat. “Of course you both must stay the night here. There’s some food in the kitchen. If you help yourselves, I’ll make up the guest rooms for you.”

She wasn’t hungry. When she was finally alone in her room, Bess closed the door and stood looking at her case. She barely had the energy to open it. It was still early, but she wanted nothing more than to take a bath and put on her robe. In one sense, her search had been successful, but in another, she felt a long journey had come to an end. She had finally, and definitively it seemed, lost Harry.

Charles had made the bed and placed three folded towels on top of the quilt. On the bedside table, he had leaned the cardboard photograph he had found in Harry’s library against the lamp. She lay on her side on the bed and stared at the image. His boyhood face stared out at her, a reminder that perhaps she hadn’t lost everything.

Suddenly, she sat up. She went to the door and flung it open. “Charles! Gladys!” she called into the hallway. “Come quickly!”

Charles rushed into her room, Gladys following with her hand on his shoulder. “What is it?” he breathed.

Bess waved the card in front of him. “This is it! This is the last photograph! It was here all along.”

Charles looked at her skeptically. “But I didn’t take that photograph. And there are no words in it anyway. How can that be the one we were looking for?”

“But you’re in it. It’s practically the same thing. Look!” She pointed to the painted studio backdrop. “Here.” Behind Charles’s left arm, in the faded black-and-white clouds, was a fat-cheeked baby angel in white sleeves. On the cuff of one of the sleeves was a small embroidered heart. The little symbol seemed, somehow, out of place, as if it had been pasted on.

“It’s the expression—wear your heart on your sleeve. Where your heart has ever been . . . They’re the words from the song.” She waved the photograph at him. “Don’t look at me like that. I know you think I’m reaching. But this is exactly the kind of game Harry loved. He loved wordplay like this.” Riddles had thrilled him. He’d hid them in the notes he passed her from floor to floor of their house, always trying to stump her: palindromes, double entendres, puns, and rebus puzzles, messages hidden in pictures. He would write out the letters of the alphabet, for example, leaving out the letter u, to mean missing you. Or he would hide their dinner plans in an acrostic disguised as a love poem.

Charles examined the photograph closely. “I suppose . . .”

Bess shivered with excitement. “There’s something to this, I’m telling you.”

Gladys turned to the light coming through the window. “Let’s say you are right—what does it all mean?”

“It means there’s a message here.”

“But how do you know there are only four pictures you’re supposed to be using, and not more?”

“I don’t. Can you fetch the other three?” Bess asked Charles. “I need to look at them all.”

When he came back, she spread the four photographs on the floor in front of them, in chronological order, starting with the most recent, and squinted at them. She felt a curious energy surging through her. “Charles, help me. My eyes are failing. Do you see anything else on these? Any other words?”

Charles opened a drawer in his desk and rummaged through its contents. After a moment he pulled out a magnifying glass and knelt down beside the picture of the yacht. In the far corner was the back half of another boat, mostly obscured.

“I remember this . . .” he mused. “This was the only boat I’ve ever come across named after a male. The William, it was called.”

“But the only letters visible in the photograph are the last three,” Bess said. “I-A-M.”

“Do you think there’s something to it?”

“I’m not sure.”

In the pageant article, there were a number of other words. A scripted sign on the boardwalk advertised the Velvet Soap Company in tall white letters. Another spelled out “Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum,” and “Frostilla fragrant lotion.” And then there was the caption: “Kathleen O’Neill of Philadelphia, waiting for the pageant results.” And Charles’s own name in the corner.

Bess rubbed her eyes. “What do you see?” she demanded. “Damn it, it’s all a blur to me.”

Gladys leaned in. “What is it?”

Charles shook his head. “I’m not sure. Let me see the others.” He peered down at the postcard. Come enjoy the beauty of the ocean, wild and wide, the card read. “I have to admit, it’s such a singular phrase, it does seem like more than a coincidence.” He flipped the card over. “The caption on the back says, ‘Young’s Pier, Atlantic City.’” He ran his finger over the card. “It’s not possible,” he said quietly.