The Secret Life of Houdini (71 page)

With these administrative details out of the way, Margery entered the room and climbed into her cabinet-box. For this sitting, Houdini would control her left hand and Prince her right. Houdini later recalled that as he carefully watched her face, he “could tell by the way she pulled down on her neck that she was ‘reaching’ for something.” Convinced that she had concealed something, he repeatedly told Prince not to let go of her right hand until the séance was over.

At 9:14 the séance began. Nine minutes later, Walter arrived.

“
Houdini you are very clever, indeed, but it won’t work,
” Walter said. “
I suppose it was an accident those things were left in the cabinet?
”

“What was left in the cabinet?” Houdini asked.

“
What did you do that for, Houdini?
” Walter raged. “
You God damned son of a bitch. You cad you. There’s a ruler in this cabinet, you unspeakable cad. The idea of your putting up a plant like that on a girl. You won’t live forever Houdini, you’ve got to die. I put a curse on you now that will follow you every day for the rest of your short life. Now you get the hell out of here and don’t you ever come back or I won’t!
”

Dr. Comstock intervened. “Walter, if you will reflect for a minute you will see that this box has been in the room where there are tools and workmen and it is indeed possible that someone may have left or locked a ruler in it.”

“
That is possible,
” Walter admitted. “
I apologize to Houdini. You may cut all the nasty words out of the record, but leave all the rest.
”

Houdini asked that the entire abusive remark remain part of the record.

That ended any chance for any phenomena. Collins was called in and he swore on his mother’s life that the ruler wasn’t his. The séance dragged on for another two and a half hours, but with the medium in the box, which was locked this night, the bell box remained silent.

“
A great chance I have to do anything with all you and myself in this state of mind,
” Walter bellyached. “
I admit I lost my temper,
” he said toward the end of the night. And then he said, “
Goodbye
.”

What was most significant about this sitting was that the Crandon camp, who had control over the signed séance minutes, immediately falsified the record to make it appear that Houdini had been caught planting the ruler and was remorseful for his actions in the séance room.

In Crandon’s version of the séance, which was immediately published in Spiritualist periodicals around the world, and later in both Bird’s and Crandon’s books, when the lights were turned up after Walter’s tirade against Houdini, the magician had buried his face in his hands and was almost weeping.

“Oh, this is terrible. My dear sainted mother
was
married to my father! This is terrible. I don’t know anything about any ruler. Why should I do a thing like that?”

In another Crandon version, Houdini was reputed to have said, “I’m not myself. I don’t feel well.”

According to Bird’s book, Houdini was reacting to the original significance of the term “son of a bitch”—namely that he was a bastard. It’s interesting that this allegation was made by the Margery camp. At that time, there had been rumors circulating in the magic community that Houdini and Hardeen were half brothers. For this story to be dredged up suggests that some insider might have been feeding Crandon information to use against Houdini. At any rate, the Crandons certainly knew how to push Houdini’s buttons; any slur against his mother would be considered more than fighting words.

Who planted the ruler became a raging debate between the two camps. In 1959, a Houdini biography by William Lindsay Gresham claimed that years after the fact, Houdini’s assistant Collins admitted that Houdini had secreted the ruler into the cabinet. The source of the story was the magician Fred Keating. It was not until our perusal of the files in Margery’s great-granddaughter’s possession that we uncovered the close relationship between Keating and the medium.

The ruler imbroglio raises a more interesting issue that goes to the heart of both Margery’s and Lady Doyle’s disparate mediumships. To gain insight into their skills, we need look no further than the ventriloquist. At the beginning of an exhibition of ventriloquism, our logical side immediately sees a clearly and unmistakably lifeless figure. Nonetheless, a few minutes into a soundly constructed ventriloquism routine, our emotional side suspends disbelief, short-circuiting our critical and analytical capacities. Now the figure comes alive, sometimes to the bizarre extent that the ventriloquist’s figure has been attacked for something
it
has said.

By now, Margery had morphed from a trance medium into a direct or independent voice medium. Proximity to her was now the condition on which the spirit world, in the form of Walter, depended, but his voice was not hers, it emanated from outside her physical form. She was not possessed by him, he just needed her nearby. Over time, Margery’s stamina improved and Walter became capable of all sorts of phenomena. She may have been one of the most versatile mediums in the history of spirit contact.

As a medium, Margery was a descendant of Eurycles of Greece, the most famous of the pre-Delphic oracles, who had a “demon” voice that emanated from his chest and made oracular predictions. The twentieth-century incarnation of the oracles was decidedly less appealing, and more akin to a carnival sideshow. Walter just performed stunts, like a trick dog. On the rare occasion it was given, his advice was inferior.

If we agree that Margery and the other mediums who have been caught are one hundred percent pure frauds, then we must examine their voices. Margery had an advantage in that it was even easier for the audience members at her séances to suspend their disbelief since her performance took place under pitch-black conditions. There was no way to scrutinize her lips. During the progression of her mediumship, Crandon cronies built scientific-looking machines that were meant to control her breath, proving that Walter’s voice was truly independent. The machines were impressive-looking but bogus—a piece of gum secreted in her mouth could short-circuit the entire control.

Margery and Crandon demonstrated that they had a diabolical understanding of the psychology of magic. They knew that her séance was a performance. More than once Margery and Crandon disagreed and Walter sided with Crandon. This brilliant device has the effect of undermining the sitter’s natural intuition. We all innately know that sane people don’t argue with themselves. We are smoothly lulled into accepting Walter as real.

Occasionally clues are unintentionally left, as in the case of Walter complaining of sabotage. On the first occasion Walter demanded that the bell box be removed to the light and examined, something was wrong. Perhaps this was a setup by the Crandons to implicate Houdini; perhaps Houdini did try to rig the switch. It can’t be known. During the next day’s séance, Margery made a tactical blunder. As soon as the lights went out, Walter screamed bloody murder, accusing Houdini of planting the ruler in the box. For eighty years the power of the ventriloquist’s suspension has clouded this story. Biographers have both accused Houdini and acquitted him with no proof, only anecdotal evidence. If we allow only our rational brain to look at the situation, we can cut through the fog. In the séance room that night, Margery entered the box in the light, her arms were pushed through the side holes, and the top was closed around her neck. She never had use of her hands in the box; they were being vigilantly held by Houdini and Dr. Prince. Yet as soon the lights were out, Walter appeared and accused Houdini of planting a ruler. If we realize that Walter doesn’t exist, we must ask ourselves: How does Margery know that a ruler is under her cushion? It’s a folding carpenter’s ruler, something that would, by using her toes, feel like a nondescript rectangular object. In the dark, nestled under the pillow, there was no way that she could have known what it was if she hadn’t brought it in or known in advance it would be in the box.

Margery knew there was no Walter, just as Lady Doyle knew there was no Pheneas.

Six months before his arrival, Conan Doyle had written and commented on a controversial English medium named William Hope, the head of the “Crewe Circle” that Houdini had dispatched DeVega to spy on. “Hope is a perfectly genuine medium…but he is a fanatic, and in my opinion would do anything his ‘guides’ had ordered him to do.” Suddenly Conan Doyle had his own spirit guide, who came to him through his wife’s hand, and he began doing everything his guide commanded.

Doyle’s earlier advocacy of the fairy photographs had been a stunning blow to his credibility. Some critics suggested that he was more like Dr. Watson than Sherlock Holmes. With his reputation in jeopardy, Lady Doyle shrewdly realized that Sir Arthur, incredulous and stubborn, literally needed a control. Another miscue like endorsing patently faked photographs of children’s book fairies and goblins illustrations could turn him into a laughingstock and ruin his reputation. One way to prevent that and to prevent him from being exploited by devious mediums would be to channel the vast majority of his communications with the spirit world in the home circle. That goal was accomplished when she developed her talent for automatic writing. It was reinforced when she introduced Sir Arthur’s guide, Pheneas. It’s no coincidence that the first words out of Pheneas’s mouth were
“We are brothers”
and
“Your wife is invaluable to us.”
Coincidence, like Houdini said, is a kindlier word. Deliberate mystification is more accurate.

The next afternoon, Munn, Prince, Houdini, and Margery had lunch together at a restaurant in a Boston suburb. Houdini was scheduled to play a vaudeville engagement in Boston in a few weeks, and Margery was fearful that he would denounce her as a fraud from the stage.

“If you misrepresent me from the stage at Keith’s some of my friends will come up and give you a good beating,” Margery said.

This was no idle threat. Margery devotee Joe DeWyckoff had a history of violence, once stalking and smashing his walking stick over the head of a man who had offended him and then continuing to rain punches on the man’s face before they were separated.

“I am not going to misrepresent you,” Houdini replied. “They are not coming on the stage and I am not going to get a beating.”

“Then it is your wits against mine,” she said, and gave Houdini a “furtive” look. “How would it look for my twelve year old son to grow up and read that his mother was a fraud?”

“Then don’t be a fraud,” Houdini suggested.

That night, a new control box was tried. It was Comstock’s invention and it was for solus sittings. Both the medium and the observer, sitting opposite each other, would put their feet into the contraption, which covered half of their shins. A board was then locked in place, making any foot movement impossible. The committee sat for an hour, waiting for something to happen, to no avail. Margery was running out of time to make her case before these men.

“Houdini, I wish you would go into a trance state,” Margery said.

Then the dour Dr. Crandon spoke up. “Some day, Houdini, you will see the light and if it were to occur this evening, I would gladly give ten thousand dollars to charity.”

“It may happen,” Houdini shrugged. “But I doubt it.”

“Yes sir, if you were converted this evening I would willingly give $10,000 to some charity.”

Houdini wasn’t converted, Walter couldn’t come through, and the séance ended a few minutes later.

The next night, Walter was feeling his oats in the séance room. Before his friendly circle, he was hailed for forever discrediting Houdini as a psychic researcher. The official record reflects that Walter “had quite a lot to say about Houdini and the jolts Walter might give him every day, reminding him of the curse he had hurled at him. He said that if Houdini said anything false on the stage, Walter would finish him.”

On the same day that Margery was threatening to have Houdini beaten up, Conan Doyle was composing another letter to Crandon. They had been exchanging almost daily letters by now. Doyle thanked Crandon for the successive séance reports and then turned to Houdini. “Something will happen to that man H. You mark my words. Better to get between the metals when an express is due, than block the way of the spirit. I could give many examples. Did you ever hear of the death of Podmore!” Frank Podmore was an English writer who wrote many books on Spiritualism, none quite rabid enough for Sir Arthur’s taste. He drowned in August of 1910, with some people speculating that his death was a suicide.

With the failure of Margery to produce at these crucial sittings, the Crandon camp went into damage control mode. The good doctor wrote letters to the leading Spiritualists around the world, trumpeting Houdini’s total “exposure” by Walter. When Carrington heard the séance reports he was aghast at Houdini’s cagelike restraint but overjoyed at Walter’s attack. “I would have given a lot to have been present at that sitting when H. wept!” he wrote Crandon.

The Crandon camp began to think that Houdini had somehow tricked the cabinet-box. After getting carbons of the sittings, DeWyckoff wrote Crandon with a suggestion. “All circumstances, from every angle, point to Houdini’s guilt and there is not a doubt in my mind but that
he is guilty
in both instances—viz. ‘planting’ the rubber and the ruler!…I feel deeply for you and Mrs. Crandon and for the cause of ‘Truth’ and it is a pity that Walter had seen fit to mitigate or withdraw the
curse
. ‘Truth’ was
shrieking
when Walter used the only forcible language accessible and applicable to a cad like Houdini under the circumstances…. We must all now use our best judgment—individually and collectively as to what to do in the immediate future…It occurs to me that of moment we ought to try and ascertain who actually constructed the box for Houdini and let me interview him or ‘reach’ him.”

Crandon responded and assured DeWyckoff that the curse on Houdini was still in place. “We are quite content, even jubilant, over the issue, so don’t feel sorry for us. Walter did not mitigate or withdraw his curse. He only withdrew the individual words which might not be published, and distinctly said that all the rest was to remain.” Then he invited DeWyckoff to Boston to discuss strategy.