The Secret Life of Houdini (68 page)

Despite Houdini’s assertions that he approached the subject with an open mind, his book was immediately attacked by the Spiritualists as a one-sided diatribe. Critics correctly pointed out that there were many factual errors in the book, but Houdini chalked those up to his editors at Harper and Brothers who cut 100,000 words from the manuscript. In a letter to the author Upton Sinclair, who was sympathetic to Spiritualism and other psychic phenomena, Houdini explained his urgency to get the book to market. “The publishing of my book had been so long drawn out that I had a slight premonition that perhaps I would not live to see the book in print if I waited much longer, so I allowed them to rush it, against my judgment, and made some of the very important mistakes, they did not think worthy of correction.”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had been spending most every night in his home circle, where Pheneas had now begun to speak directly through Lady Doyle. According to the ancient spirit guide, 1925 was the year of doom.
“In September the earth will be shaken from the sky. There will be great loss of life. It will be terrific. All humanity will be shaken to the core. Shams will then fall away. God will come into his own. After that comes the deluge. England will not suffer as badly as the rest of the world…. It is not like Atlantis. It is not indiscriminate. Our plans are made…. no one will suffer that should be spared. God is love. Remember that. It will be like a great sieve passing through all that is worthless, retaining only the fruit.”

Around this time, Pheneas directed Doyle to keep a record of these messages, and to eventually publish them in book form.
“Every sect is done for. The people know too much,”
Pheneas said.
“They have failed in the past and people will turn to those who have been in direct spirit communication. The medium knows this. She senses it. Her powers will develop greatly. She will be, as it were, a small bridge between two enormous countries…. Take all this down. We are most anxious to have a record as it will be invaluable. It is this script that the whole world, not England alone, will cling to in its great extremity.”

“Is it the Second Coming?” Doyle wondered.

“Yes,”
said Pheneas.
“It is the Second Coming, even as prophesied.”

At the beginning of July, one of Walter’s most impressive manifestations was the ringing of a bell box in the séance room, while the medium was under strict control. A box had been devised, and modified over the months, that contained a bell assembly and a battery. Two eight-inch-square boards had been hinged together along one edge of each. Small metal plates had been attached to various points of their inside surfaces and a spiral spring was permanently affixed, keeping them apart. The boards were wired to the battery so that when enough pressure was put on them for the plates to make contact with each other, the bell rang. To mitigate any chance of a stray human hand producing the contact in the dark, the upper contact board was covered with a plaque that had been coated with luminous paint.

On July 13, the bell box was on the floor to Margery’s left. Her hands and feet were controlled by those sitting on either side of her. In spite of this, Walter rang the bell at will and on request, even giving combinations of long and short rings. One of the sitters then asked to see Walter’s finger when it pressed down on the box. In response, there emerged from under Margery’s chair a dollop of strange-looking light that was in the shape and size of a forefinger. It slowly moved across to the box. When it arrived there, the bell rang. Now everyone wanted to see this new phenomenon.

“
Never mind the circle,
” Walter said. “
Everybody get up and stand around and look at it.
”

They all complied, breaking control, of course, but what they saw astounded them. Again the strange finger-shaped light seemed to float across and depress the box, causing the bell to ring.

Two nights later, the séance room became a three-ring circus. Walter made the bell ring, he talked and whistled through a megaphone, shook a tambourine, and brought Laura Crandon’s long-dead dog back, who barked obediently. On top of this, a strange psychic light spotlighted the tambourine. Margery’s laughter permeated the room. Stunningly, all of this phenomena was happening simultaneously.

WOMAN ASTOUNDS PSYCHIC EXPERTS. BOSTON PROFESSIONAL MAN’S WIFE MAY WIN
$2,500
PRIZE FOR MEDIUM, SAYS J. MALCOLM BIRD. NOT THE LEAST HINT OF FRAUD. SPIRIT CONTROL SCATTERS ROSES—SOMETIMES CARESSES WITH NON-MATERIAL FLOWERS. HER DEMONSTRATIONS ARE INFINITELY CONVINCING.

The New York Times
headline screamed. Three days later, the
Times
carried a follow-up story: “Margery, the Boston Medium, Passes All Psychic Tests. Scientists Find No Trickery in a Score of Seances. Versatile Spook Puzzles Investigators by Variety of His Demonstrations.”

The world was welcoming Margery and Walter with open arms, thanks to J. Malcolm Bird’s glowing articles in
Scientific American
. Now the stage was set for a visit from Houdini. He had previously exposed two frauds who had applied for the committee’s prize money. George Valiantine was able to produce lights and have spirit trumpets prance around the dark room, at one point bopping Houdini in the head. But the manifestations weren’t considered evidential, considering that an electrical connection had been rigged to the medium’s chair that showed that all the phenomenon coincided with the times that the medium surreptitiously left his chair.

When a young Italian named Nino Pecoraro had almost convinced the committee of his psychic powers, Houdini had to rush to New York from Little Rock, Arkansas. Despite being tied up with rope, Pecoraro, with the assistance of Eusapia Palladino, who while she lived had been a medium and was now acting as his spirit control, was able to ring bells and jangle tambourines. Houdini took one look at the 180-foot length of rope that had been used and realized that Pecoraro was really an escape artist who knew how to use slack to get out of the rope ties. When Houdini had finished tying him with a series of short ropes, a process that took the Master Mystifier an hour and a half, all Palladino could do was curse Houdini and complain that her young friend was uncomfortable. J. Malcolm Bird, the secretary of the
Scientific American
committee, had to restrain Houdini from arguing with the dead medium.

Those were different cases, though. Margery wasn’t a professional medium and she had actually stated that she would refuse to accept any prize money. Her husband was a prominent Boston surgeon. These weren’t the fraudulent mediums that Houdini was used to debunking. He vowed to go into the séances with an open mind. If he determined Margery to be a fraud, he’d expose her in a second, but if she really had the power to channel the dead, he promised to scream that news from the rooftops.

Still, Crandon was wary of Houdini and saw the sitting with the
Scientific American
committee as a potential skirmish. On June 6, he had written Sir Arthur: “We continue to sit with the
Scientific American
Committee every night. Every night I insist on their living up to their agreement and giving me signed copies of their notes…. if they ever make any announcements not consistent with these notes you can readily see I have the material to crucify them. We are not wasting any time in compliments or politeness. It is war to the finish and they know I shall not hesitate to treat them surgically if necessary.”

Margery gives Houdini her best “come hither” look as J. Malcolm Bird (above) and
Scientific American
publisher O. D. Munn look on.
From the collection of Dr. Bruce Averbook

“It is not [Houdini’s] ‘clever lying’ but his acrid psychic atmosphere which stops phenomena,” Doyle responded. “I wonder if Walter can rise above it.”

Walter fired the first salvo in the war. During his séance on July 11, attended by committee members Dr. Daniel Comstock, Hereward Carrington, and the magician Fred Keating, Walter manifested lights, rang the bell box, and then caused Margery’s breast to glow sporadically. He also took time to compose and sing a little ditty about Houdini: “
Harry Houdini, he sure is a Sheeny, A man with a crook in his shoe. Says he ‘As to Walter, I’ll lead him to slaughter.’ ‘But,’ says Walter, ‘Perhaps I’ll get you!’
”

July 23, 1924

Dear Sir Arthur,

Tonight Houdini and Mr. Munn, owner of the
Scientific American
, sit with us for the first time and will be here several days. I think Psyche
[Margery]
is somewhat stirred up over it internally because of Houdini’s general nastiness. She is vomiting merrilly
[sic]
this morning. However, some of her worst days have given the best sittings.

L. R. G. Crandon, M.D.

That night Margery and Walter both got their first glimpses of Houdini. He came to 10 Lime Street accompanied by magazine owner O. D. Munn, and they convened in the fourth-floor room where the Crandons held their nightly séances. Just down the hall, Margery’s twelve-year-old son had been locked into his bedroom, to nullify any accusation that he was a confederate of his mother. The circle that night consisted of Margery, her husband, a man named Conant, who was the lab assistant for the committeeman Comstock, who was absent, Munn, Houdini, and Bird. Carrington had left town to avoid sitting in the same room with Houdini.

Margery sat down in her makeshift cabinet, really just a three-fold screen. As usual, Dr. Crandon sat at his wife’s right, controlling her right leg and hand. Houdini was given the position of honor at her left. Bird lurked outside the circle, making sure Crandon’s control over his wife was never broken by circling the fingers of Margery and Crandon with one of his hands. To test Walter, the bell box and a megaphone were in the room. The lights were dimmed.

Soon the sound of whistling filled the room. Then there was whispering. Walter had arrived.

“Very interesting conversation you two men had on the train,”
Walter addressed Houdini and Munn.
“I was there. I can always be where my interests lie.”

After a few minutes, Houdini felt something touch him on the inside of his right leg.

“That’s me,”
Walter said gleefully. He repeated this a few times more.

Walter then requested an intermission, asking that the contact bell box be brought out of the medium’s cabinet and placed in front of Houdini. This was done but nothing happened.

“I need the illuminated plaque. Bird, go fetch it and bring it back and put it on the contact board,”
Walter ordered.

Bird left his post, but couldn’t find the plaque.

“Control,”
Walter yelled, before Bird had a chance to get back to the circle. Everyone held hands again, making sure the medium’s hands were accounted for.

“I’ve got the megaphone in the air,”
Walter said.
“Houdini, where should I throw it?”

“Towards me,” Houdini said.

Seconds later, the megaphone crashed at Houdini’s feet.

“Bird, take your place in the doorway,”
Walter commanded, and before Bird could even get there, Margery’s cabinet was thrown violently on its back.

A third intermission was taken, and a red light was turned on to rearrange the cabinet.

The illuminated plaque was brought in and put over the contact board. During the last part of the sitting, the plaque was seen to oscillate and move slowly back and forth and then finally, the contact box rang, once long and several times with short peals.

Walter had produced.

After the séance, committee secretary Bird drove Houdini and Munn to the hotel where they were staying. Bird, as usual, was lodging with the Crandons. The secretary parked his car in front of the building and the three men held a quick postmortem. Of course, Houdini took the floor first.

“Well, gentlemen, I’ve got her,” Houdini said confidentially. “All fraud—every bit of it. One more sitting and I will be ready to expose everything. But one thing puzzles me—I don’t see how she did that megaphone trick.”

Bird suggested some hypotheses that the committee had come up with, including the idea that the megaphone was on her shoulder.

“It couldn’t have been there,” Houdini said, adding that he had explored that possibility during the séance. Suddenly a look of relief crossed his face.

“The megaphone was on her head. That’s the slickest ruse I ever heard of,” Houdini marveled.

His reasoning was simple. When Bird had left the room that freed up Margery’s right hand and foot, leaving her husband as the sole control, which was no control at all. Using her right hand, she tilted the corner of the cabinet enough to place her foot under it. She then quickly picked up the megaphone with her free right hand, and placed it on her head, as if it were a dunce cap. Throwing the cabinet over was easy with her foot under one corner. Then Walter immediately asked for control and Margery gave Houdini her right foot. With the megaphone already loaded on her head, she had no need for her hands being free; a simple tilt of the head in the desired direction would achieve her purposes.