The Confabulist (12 page)

And what would have become of Bess then? Without him she would have no way of supporting herself. She would be at the mercy of the world. As would his mother. The weight of this responsibility settled onto him, making him feel more constrained than he ever had inside a trunk.

He wanted to be gone from this place, but there was nothing to do but wait. He wrapped his hand in his handkerchief and sat down on the floor. If the casino had a night watchman, he hadn’t come running when the gunshot went off. It would be difficult for him to explain his presence here, if found, as he had no way of proving anything except that he had a bullet in his hand.

At around five the sun began to come up. He walked through the casino to the front door, picked the lock securing it, opened the door, and stepped out onto the street.

There was no sign of Findlay, Simpson, or Wallace. He began to
make his way back to his hotel. Several times he stopped, bending down to tie his shoe, looking for anything out of the ordinary. When he reached his hotel, he took the staff staircase to his floor, raced down the hall and into his room.

Bess was asleep in a chair facing the door. There was an empty bottle of gin on the floor. When he closed the door behind him she sat up.

“Where have you been?”

“Ssh,” he said, keeping an ear at the door.

“Don’t you shush me. I suppose you’ve been with one of your women.”

He turned to her. “I was kidnapped by three men who wanted me to break into a casino for them.”

Bess snorted. “That’s a good one.”

He held out his left hand and unwrapped his handkerchief. It was crusty with blood, and his hand was swollen. It looked worse than it was, he knew. “I suppose you imagine that I’ve shot myself in the hand?”

Bess’s contempt washed away. She rushed toward him, taking his hand gently and examining it. “Oh God. What have you got yourself involved in?”

“Just a hazard of being Houdini,” he said, and told her a version of the evening’s events.

“Are you okay? We need to go to the hospital.”

Houdini checked his watch. They were due to catch a seven o’clock train to Portland. “No time right now. I don’t think it’s serious. Just a scratch. I’ll go later.”

Bess protested, but Houdini wouldn’t hear of delaying their
departure. They made the train without incident. He kept a sharp eye the whole time, half expecting to see Findlay on every corner, waiting to feel a revolver pressed up against his back. Bess could sense his nervousness.

When he arrived in Portland, a doctor saw him and removed the bullet. It seemed insignificant once it was out of his body, nothing more than a small nub of metal. They had to modify their show slightly to account for his injury, but he counted himself lucky to have escaped more or less unscathed. That night, just as he was about to go onstage, he received a telegram.

Heard you had an incident with gamblers. You handled yourself well, as suspected. I am impressed. J. E. Wilkie
.

Houdini placed the telegram in his pocket and sat down. How did Wilkie know? Was he watching him? He was caught up in something he couldn’t see the whole of. And what did Wilkie mean by “as suspected”? This didn’t sit right with him. He resolved to keep a sharp eye on his dealings with Wilkie and his men.

He hadn’t told Bess about the deal he’d struck with Wilkie. If she ever did find out, she’d be beyond angry.

Two days later, President McKinley was shot by an anarchist named Leon Czolgosz, and two days after that he died. The assassin was caught and tried, and less than two months after firing two bullets into the president’s abdomen he was executed in the electric chair. The day after the execution, Wilkie came to see Houdini. He did not look at all like a man who had just failed to protect the president of the United States from a disgruntled millworker—his
appearance was every bit as natty as ever. But when he spoke Houdini could detect the strain he was under through the hoarseness in his voice.

After a few moments of cursory small talk, Wilkie said, “I want you to go to Europe.”

Houdini shook his head. He was playing to packed houses, and every few weeks his salary went up. There was nothing in Europe that could be better than here.

“Do you know why Czolgosz shot the president?” Wilkie didn’t wait for an answer. “He was inspired by the man who shot the king of Italy. Europe is a breeding ground for revolution. Something is going to happen. I don’t know what, but we need to be prepared.”

“What do you propose I do about this?”

“Do what you do. Travel, break out of prisons, talk to people. The same as you do here.”

“If it’s the same as I do here, then why can’t I just stay here?”

“Because I don’t need you here.” Wilkie looked at his hand. “I see you’ve healed just fine.”

“Yes, thank you. How did you know what happened?”

Wilkie smiled. “It is my job to know. Do you see now what I mean about you having a set of skills suited to this business?”

Houdini frowned. None of this made sense. “I’m not a spy.” He had been pulled into something he couldn’t see the whole of, and it had put him in danger. Real danger, which was not the kind he was used to. He needed to find a way to get the upper hand.

“Yes,” Wilkie said, “you are. Not in a conventional sense but in a practical sense. Magicians watch, they gather information, and they act on that information. We aren’t that different, you and I. Why not
work together? I have given you a career. In return, I require you to help me. I intend to guard the stability of this country by whatever means necessary.”

“You gave me a career?” Houdini choked on the words.

“You have performed admirably, Ehrich. In fact, you have exceeded my every expectation. This invention of yours, this Houdini, has done well for you. But I got you your bookings, the venues for your publicity stunts, and your favourable press coverage. And what has been given can be taken away.”

The
Mirror
cuffs were the most formidable pair of handcuffs Houdini had ever encountered. They were made of solid steel and contained the most advanced lock ever made. In 1784 the locksmith Joseph Bramah had conceived of a new type of lock that he proclaimed could not be picked. He was so confident that he offered a large cash prize to anyone who could defeat this lock. The prize went unclaimed until 1851, when A. C. Hobbs defeated the lock at the world’s fair in London. It took him more than fifty hours, an amount of time that struck Houdini as impressive.

A Bramah lock consists of a cylindrical shaft with a shear line ring around it. At the back of the shaft is one large spring, pressing down on any number of notched sliders. A tubular key is inserted into the keyway, and grooves in the key push each slider to its correct depth, at which point a notch in the slider allows the shaft to rotate free of the shear line ring. The problem with trying to pick a Bramah lock is that because there is only one spring pressing on all of the sliders it’s difficult to tell when the pick is at the correct depth. Even
if it is at the right depth, holding it there while you pick the other sliders is nearly impossible. In addition to this each slider has at least one false notch.

The only method Houdini knew to pick this lock was to use an extremely thin shim of metal to figure out where the notches in the sliders were, and then through trial and error make a series of duplicate keys with each possible variation until he found the right series of grooves. This was how he suspected Hobbs did it, and it explained why it took him so long.

The
Mirror
cuffs consisted of two Bramah locks, one nestled inside the other. The inside lock had six sliders and the outside lock had seven sliders. Houdini was confident that he could pick it, but it would take hundreds of hours.

The band had finished the waltz. He couldn’t place the song they were playing now, which irritated him. It wasn’t half bad, and he was sure he’d heard it before. His knees were getting a bit stiff, and he shifted his weight so his blood could continue to flow to his limbs. He hadn’t been in the cabinet long—about fifteen minutes. The crowd still seemed engaged. He moved the curtain slightly and heard them react with gasps and shouts. They were worked up all right. He’d better get out of this soon or they’d lynch him.

He looked down at the handcuffs on his wrists. They were solid steel, an exact fit. There’d be no wriggling out of them. The
Mirror
cuffs were an impressive piece of workmanship. It was an extremely good thing that he wasn’t wearing them.

Harmsworth had laid the whole thing out for him. The handcuffs were as advertised, more or less. It hadn’t taken anyone five years to make them, and there was no such person as Nathaniel Hart, but other than that they were the most sophisticated locks
Houdini had ever seen. They had been proudly displayed to a panel of professional locksmiths the day before. A selection of these men were onstage now, waiting to examine the cuffs should he escape. He doubted that any man alive other than himself could pick them, but even he couldn’t pick them here in this cabinet, and not fast enough to make a good show. But the cuffs that Kelley had locked on him were a replica, held on by a simple screw mechanism. Kelley had turned the key so many times because he wasn’t engaging a lock, he was setting a screw. He’d been instructed to try to disguise this fact, a clear giveaway to anyone who knew what to look for, but instead he’d emphasized it.

Houdini hadn’t wanted to do it like this. He didn’t mind the occasional use of gaffed cuffs, but for something this high profile—this would surely rank as one of the greatest escapes ever—he preferred a little more art. Yet Harmsworth had insisted.

He pushed at the curtain and then opened it. Everyone expected him to emerge free at this point, but it was too soon. A show had to last for a certain length of time.

“Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. I am unfortunately not yet free. I simply desire to get a better look at these fine handcuffs—the light in my cabinet leaves much to be desired.”

He caught Bess’s eye. She had been testy today, or perhaps it was just his imagination. Perhaps it was he who was testy. That was the thing with Bess. It was hard to tell who started things. Once they were both wound up it didn’t really matter. She winked back at him, mischievous. He imagined them together, later that night, once he had escaped. They would go for a walk along the Thames, quiet but together. Or perhaps they would stay in and order a lavish dinner, talk about what they would do when they returned home. He was
too hard on her. It was an offshoot of being hard on himself, but he had no right to be this way. He would make it up to her, be better. First, however, he had an escape to perform.

Bess had been, correctly, against the idea of going to Europe.

“We have a good life,” she said. “We don’t need to do this. Do you not remember the last time we went to Russia?”

Wilkie’s threat had stuck, though, so they finished their bookings and sailed for London. A week after arriving Houdini received an invitation to visit Scotland Yard, ostensibly to demonstrate his abilities with their finest handcuffs. The cuffs had produced little challenge, but afterward he was taken aside by the head of the Scotland Yard’s Special Branch, William Melville. Melville was a severe-looking fellow, with a trace of an Irish accent and an obvious temper. He was the walking embodiment of a policeman, hulking and muscled and intimidating. It was a hot June day but he wore his coat buttoned all the way up and didn’t appear to sweat at all.

“Wilkie tells me you’re good,” he said. “Are you?”

Houdini tried not to appear offended. “I just gave what I thought was a convincing demonstration.”

“I don’t trust Wilkie.”

“Neither do I.”

Melville laughed. The sound he made struck Houdini as comical, but the magician kept his face serene. “Good. Then we’re in agreement.”

Houdini suspected he knew where Melville was headed with this talk.

“I think you’ll find Her Majesty’s Great Britain very different from your United States of America,” Melville said.

“I can assure you I’ve already discovered many differences.”

Melville laughed again. “I’m sure you have. Here, though, I think you’ll find that doors don’t just open for you, no matter how good you are with locks. You will need them opened for you.”

“I can assure you that no door has ever just opened for me, sir,” Houdini said. He did not like Melville’s implication.

“You misunderstand me. Or possibly you don’t. No matter. I am aware of your arrangement with Wilkie. I would like to engage you in a similar arrangement. You are in a unique position, Mr. Houdini. You can travel to Germany and Russia and learn things that most men I employ cannot. Wilkie knows this as well as I. We have many enemies in common, and so we have many friends in common.”

“And what’s in it for me?”

This time, Melville didn’t laugh. “Doors, sir. Like you, I am a man who can open doors.”

“What, precisely, will I be doing for you?”

“Just keep your eyes and ears open for now. Should you find yourself breaking out of any prisons on your travels, I might like to know the particulars of their layouts and weaknesses.”

While touring Germany and France for the next three years, Houdini sent both Melville and Wilkie regular reports. Descriptions of prisons he escaped from, information about military barracks he toured, profiles of politicians and police officers he met. It was unclear to him of what value this information was, and he rarely received
acknowledgement from either of them. He began to imagine that they had lost interest in him. His fame was growing, and soon they would no longer be able to affect his career in any way.

This changed in the fall of 1903, when a promoter contacted him with an offer to tour Russia. He wasn’t particularly eager to go—he’d heard from other performers that the Russian police had a way of getting their hands in your pockets. The sheer volume of paperwork required to ship his equipment, much of which technically qualified as burglary tools, was inhibiting. But both Wilkie and Melville insisted that he go, as Russia was on the brink of war with Japan.