The Secret Life of Houdini (27 page)

“My knees hurt and my legs have cramped,” Houdini explained. “Please allow me to stretch them. I am not done yet.”

The
Mirror
Cuffs and key.
David Copperfield’s International Museum and Library of the Conjuring Arts

The crowd cheered. Mr. Parker, the manager, brought Houdini a glass of water. Then the
Mirror
representative conferred with Parker. Parker nodded his head and signaled to an assistant. In seconds, the assistant was back with a large cushion.

“The
Mirror
has no desire to submit Mr. Houdini to a torture test,” the journalist said. “If Mr. Houdini will permit me, I shall have great pleasure in offering him the use of this cushion.”

Houdini pulled the cushion into his ghost house and resumed his work, the silken walls of the cabinet quivering from his efforts.

By now, the tension became unbearable for Bess and she rushed out of the arena. Twenty minutes went by. The audience was fixated on that tiny cabinet. Suddenly Houdini came out, but the whole assemblage moaned as one when they noted that the handcuffs were still affixed.

Houdini looked like he was on the verge of collapse. He slowly advanced on his challenger.

“My coat is hurting me. Will you remove the handcuffs for a moment in order that I may take it off?” Houdini asked.

The journalist considered the request.

“I am indeed sorry to disoblige you, Mr. Houdini, but I cannot unlock these cuffs unless you admit you are defeated.” The journalist seemed to think that there might have been more to Houdini’s request than met the eye.

“Cut your coat off,” someone from the gallery shouted.

And Houdini did precisely that. He maneuvered his fettered hands until he pulled a penknife from his waistcoat pocket. Then he opened the knife with his teeth, and with a jerking motion, threw his frock coat up over his head. Then he calmly began to cut the seams of his coat. He finished by tearing at the coat with his teeth. It finally hung from his arms by a mere shred and some of the committeemen removed the remains.

The audience yelled themselves frantic. Some screamed at the
Mirror
representative for refusing Houdini’s request. Everyone was disheartened to see that Houdini had not made a dent in getting free from the restraints.

An odd audience member implored Houdini to “give it up.”

“Go on, Houdini,” others encouraged him.

And he did. He retreated back into his cabinet and began a last, desperate attempt to free himself. The frame of the cabinet rocked and the curtains fluttered from the exertion.

Houdini had been locked up for more than an hour. Then, just as the orchestra was finishing a stirring march, Houdini suddenly bounded out of the cabinet, holding the shiny handcuffs in one hand. He was free.

The audience roared with delight. Men pulled their hats off and waved them in the air. Hugs were exchanged. The ladies fluttered their handkerchiefs. But Houdini was not right. He half-fainted into the arms of one of the committeemen, hysterical, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Thank God! Thank God!” he murmured.

Houdini was helped backstage, but the audience still refused to disperse. They stood and cheered and exchanged handshakes for a full five minutes until he haltingly walked back out. He was immediately lifted onto the shoulders of some of the committeemen, who bore him in triumph around the auditorium. Then the crowd implored him to speak.

“I entered this ring feeling like a doomed man,” Houdini said. “There were times when I thought that I could not get out of these handcuffs. But your applause gave me courage, and I determined to ‘do or die.’ I have never seen such handcuffs, locks within locks. I thought this was my Waterloo, after nineteen years of work. I have not slept for nights. But I will do so tonight.”

He went on to praise the
Mirror
for their “gentlemanly treatment and fair play,” and the
Mirror
representative, in turn, asked Houdini’s permission to present him at a later date with a beautiful solid silver replica of the handcuffs. Houdini agreed. In fact, the newspaper went one better. Houdini wound up with both the original cuffs and the replicas. And therein lies the real story behind the most important challenge of Houdini’s life.

The stirring story of Houdini’s triumph over the
Mirror
Cuffs made every newspaper in England (and there were thirty dailies in London alone at that time). Yet Houdini’s own notations about the escape in his diary are strangely low-key. On March 17, the actual day of the greatest escape in his career, Houdini wrote: “
Mirror
matinee. I defeat the
Mirror
, London, Eng. at Hippodrome. Made such a sensation the public carried me on their shoulders.” The next day’s entry read: “All English newspapers have wonderful accounts of me escaping out of
Mirror
handcuffs, greatest thing that any artist had in England. Extras were out and it was a case of nothing but ‘Houdini at the Hippodrome.’”

It is absolutely bizarre that Houdini should describe with much greater detail an escape from a plugged handcuff at Blackburn a few months earlier than his triumph over the most deviously designed handcuff-king-breakers ever produced. Perhaps there was really nothing he could write about?

On March 20, three days after the challenge, Houdini showed up at the
Mirror
offices. “I want to make a challenge,” Houdini told the editors. “You challenged me. Now I challenge the world.” And he handed them a prepared statement.

A CHALLENGE TO THE WORLD

London Hippodrome, March 20, 1904

To Whom It May Concern!

Since my success in mastering the celebrated
Daily Mirror
Handcuff it has come to my knowledge that certain disappointed, sceptical
[sic]
persons have made use of most unjust remarks against the result of last Thursday’s contest.

In particular, one person has had the brazen audacity to proclaim himself able to open the
Mirror
Handcuff in two minutes.

Such being the case, I hereby challenge any mortal being to open the
Mirror
Handcuff in the same space of time that I did. I will allow him the full use of both hands; also any instrument or instruments, barring the actual key. The cuff must not be broken or spoilt. Should he succeed I will forfeit 100 guineas…

HARRY HOUDINI

According to the
Mirror
, challengers wrote in from all over the country. On March 28, a reed-thin twenty-three-year-old “with long hair and abstracted mien” named Bruce Beaumont came onstage during Houdini’s show and was presented with the cuffs. Houdini had heard that Beaumont’s wrists were abnormally thin so he told the audience it would be unfair to lock the cuffs on him since he could slip out of them in an instant. Instead, Houdini locked the cuffs and then handed them to Beaumont to open. Beaumont went into a long diatribe on the ethics of challenges, prompting such booing that the orchestra was ordered to drown him out. After an animated conversation with the house manager, Beaumont tried to open the manacles, “ran his fingers through his lank hair, struck attitudes, made speeches, and eventually flung the manacles down in a temper.” The stage manager reappeared and asked the audience if he should be booted off the stage. When they responded decidedly in the affirmative, Beaumont was thrown off and an army of stagehands came on to clear the stage for the “Plunging” Elephant act.

Years after Houdini’s victory, suspicions were raised that there may have been some complicity in the
Mirror
challenge. Rumors were circulated in the English magic community that Houdini had really been defeated in his ghost box and he communicated via code with Bess, who then pulled the
Mirror
representative aside and tearfully implored him to give them the key to restore her husband’s reputation. In this account, it was said that Bess passed the key to Houdini in the glass of water that she brought him.

It’s a dramatic story, but it’s dead wrong. For one, Bess didn’t even offer Houdini water, the stage manager, Parker, did. And it would be hard to hide a six-inch key in a glass of water. The story also suggests that Houdini was woefully unprepared for this contest. And we now know that this was not the case. More recent theories have claimed that Houdini conspired with the locksmith, Hart, to build the cuffs and then to present them to the
Mirror
and suggest a challenge to Houdini. Proponents of this theory note that Houdini had used a Birmingham locksmith to fix some Bean Giant cuffs that he would use on imitators. We also know that Houdini had spent two weeks in Birmingham just prior to opening at the Hippodrome in London. That would have given him ample opportunity to at least examine the cuffs that “no mortal man could pick.”

The problem with the Houdini-Hart conspiracy theory is that there is no solid evidence that Hart actually ever lived. Additionally, the notion that anyone had spent five years preparing this super cuff to defeat handcuff kings is implausible when the math is done. In 1899 in England there were no handcuff kings and no challenge handcuff act. Houdini was just starting to succeed in the United States. Additionally, the
Mirror
couldn’t have commissioned the cuffs five years previously; at the time of the challange it had only been in existence a few months.

The silver replica cuffs presented to Houdini by the
Daily Mirror
. Inset: The unique markings that proved the replica cuffs were made a year prior to the challenge.
David Copperfield’s International Museum and Library of the Conjuring Arts

We have had the unprecedented opportunity to inspect both the original
Mirror
cuffs and the solid sterling replica that the
Mirror
presented to Houdini after the contest, both of which now reside in David Copperfield’s wonderful collection. What struck us immediately is the fact that the cuffs are not adjustable. In fact, if they were not fitted precisely to Houdini’s wrist size, there would have been no contest. Still, the cuffs revealed greater mysteries than that.

Every item made of sterling silver in England at that time had identifying marks from the London Assay office, which could date its manufacture and even signify the part of the United Kingdom, the city, and the maker who produced it. With the great help of Houdini expert Bill Liles, we analyzed the marks on the sterling replica, and an amazing fact surfaced. The replica of the cuffs, which were presented to Houdini after his triumph, was actually manufactured the year
prior
to the challenge. Since the trophy was an exact replica of the original cuffs that fit Houdini’s wrists, and since
The Daily Mirror
representative intimated to the audience right after Houdini’s success that “a beautiful solid silver model of the handcuffs
would
be made,” it’s evident that
The Daily Mirror
conspired with Houdini to create a highly dramatic and exciting challenge. In the light of this information, the initial challenge and the actual contest take on the patina of a marvelously orchestrated show.

Houdini’s relationship with the
Mirror
(and in addition,
The Weekly Dispatch
, which hosted his antique-irons-busting feat weeks before the Hippodrome challenge) seemed unusually cozy. The publicity surrounding the
Mirror
Cuff challenge was played out for weeks and it created a sensation, boosting circulation at a time when the
Mirror
had just undergone a drastic repositioning due to severe circulation losses. So there was an incentive to cooperate with Houdini on a major challenge. The most telling evidence of complicity lies in the fact that both
The Weekly Dispatch
and the
Mirror
were owned by Houdini’s good friend press baron Alfred Charles Harmsworth. Harmsworth had his own economic interests at heart, of course, but he also had a political agenda that relied on keeping Houdini’s name prominent as the most celebrated mystifier in the world. The next stage in his relationship with Houdini would unravel six years in the future and take place half a globe away from England.