Mrs. Houdini(81)

Harry wrapped his arm around her and pulled the blanket up to his chin. “I am afraid that I cannot say. Her eyes—they looked at me, but they were not focused on me. It was . . . strange.”

It seemed to Bess that her husband was a magician who wanted, desperately, to believe that magic was real.



By that spring, Doyle had become almost as famous for his lectures on spiritualism as he was for his writing. He had crossed the Atlantic for his speaking circuit and traveled the Northeast, giving one lecture in Atlantic City and another in Carnegie Hall in New York. Afterward Harry and Bess invited Doyle and his wife to see a showing of Raymond Hitchcock’s Pinwheel Revue, then back to their home for dinner. Bess had invited Gladys as well; she had recently moved out of the Houdinis’ home and was attempting to live on her own, with the help of an aide, but Bess worried she was often lonely. She had noticed that Gladys still wore only black, and still seemed to grieve her mother’s passing even more than Harry did. When they had returned from California, Gladys seemed different to Bess—quieter, more subdued. The energetic girlishness she had once possessed seemed gone.

Harry was eager to show Sir Arthur his collections. He felt he had a kindred spirit in the writer, who appreciated libraries as much as he did. At the same time, having had some time to reflect on the séance he had done with Lady Doyle, Harry had decided that there had been nothing significant in the message that had come through from his mother. He told Bess he would like to test the lady again, if the opportunity arose.

Bess sat beside Gladys and Lady Doyle sat on the large sofa with cups of tea, listening to the men prattle on about London. Bess leaned over to Lady Doyle, trying to entice conversation out of her. The woman was still an enigma to Bess. “Lady Jean, I heard you have a remarkable voice,” she said.

Lady Doyle stirred her tea, her large rings flashing. “I did have an admired career once.” She had a very British hauteur and seemed to compose her dialogue carefully. “Of course, as you know, being the wife of a recognized figure is work enough now. People say I’m quite a recognized figure as well.”

Bess was not impressed by her boasting. She was Doyle’s second wife and had married him at the height of his wealth and fame. Bess had heard rumors that she had convinced him to change his will to leave the daughter of his first wife out of his inheritance.

“Tell me about your mother, Gladys,” Lady Doyle continued, as the men talked. “Am I correct that she lived here with you?”

Gladys’s jaw tightened. “Yes. She was very happy here.”

“She was a lovely woman,” Bess added. “She always treated me like a daughter.”

“It is a shame about her passing.”

“Yes. It certainly was.” Bess knew what she was up to. She and Harry had done just such fishing for information in their medium days. She had an idea. “Harry loved her very much. When we were home in New York he used to wear only the clothes she had given him because he thought it would please her.”

“How lovely,” Lady Doyle said.

By the fireplace, Doyle was surprised to see how many books on spiritualism Harry had amassed. “Good man,” he said. “I took you for a skeptic.”

Harry laughed. “Oh, no, I still am. That’s why I read so much.”

Doyle frowned. Bess thought she understood why the man clung to his beliefs with such tenacity, why no one could contradict him, and why he was so eager to convince Harry of his side of things. If he let go of his certainties about life after death, what then? What became of his soul? He was like a buoy tethered in a storm, dancing in black seas; if he were unmoored from his convictions and his beliefs, he would be lost. It was the same way she had felt when she first married Harry, when making her vows meant giving up the life, home, and family she had always thought she could go back to if she wanted. It had left her unmoored as well.

“If you’d only let yourself recognize the powers you possess,” Doyle said, “you could be the most powerful man in the world.” He turned to Bess. “Mrs. Houdini, you must convince him to open himself to the remarkable forces he is keeping at bay.”

Bess smiled but said nothing. George knocked on the door to inform them that dinner was ready.

Harry held up his hand. “Before we go.” He opened his briefcase and removed a small slate, four small cork balls, white ink, and a tablespoon.

Sir Arthur frowned. “What are you up to, Houdini?” Bess looked at Harry as well. She knew he had been preparing something, but he hadn’t told her he was going to bring it out that evening.

Lady Jean leaned forward eagerly. “Yes, Mr. Houdini, what are you playing at? Are we to be the unwitting audience for one of your new tricks?”

Harry handed Doyle the cork balls with a small smile. “You are welcome to cut through one of these to see that they are solid cork.” Sir Arthur, still frowning, took his pocketknife and sliced one of the balls in half. He nodded. “Yes, yes, I see. What of it?”

Harry took the second ball and, using the spoon, dropped it into the inkwell to soak up the ink. He explained what he was doing out loud, for Gladys’s sake. “While I am doing this,” he told Sir Arthur, “I would like you to leave the room and write a question or a sentence on a piece of paper. And don’t show it to me.”

Doyle complied. When he came back in the room, the paper was securely in his pocket. He sat and watched as Harry placed the ink-covered ball on the slate, and Bess, along with the Doyles, watched as the ball began to roll around the surface, on its own, the white ink spelling out a phrase on the black surface. Lady Doyle let out a small cry.