The Secret Life of Houdini (75 page)

Downstairs, the rest of the committee decided on one thought: Mrs. John Barrymore’s portrait by the Spanish painter Ignacio Zuloaga. Houdini, who had paused to throw a large blanket over his shoulders, was brought downstairs.

“I see Shakespeare, his home at Stratford-on-Avon,” he began. “There are large audiences. No, wait, it’s not England, it’s America. I know why I thought England, it’s an American theatrical family who came from England. You’re thinking of the Barrymore family, possibly Jack.”

He missed the gender and he didn’t pick up the painting, but Houdini’s high percentage of hits had shocked his committee. He refused to tell them his secret, other than that it was done by perfectly normal means. What the distinguished guests didn’t know was that they were at that moment reposing in a house that had been surreptitiously wired from cellar to roof.

Houdini’s house had been customized to enable him to astonish his visitors. It began with the front door, which didn’t open conventionally; when you turned the doorknob, the door would swing open from what should have been the hinged side. Once again, Houdini was paying silent homage to Robert-Houdin, who had loaded his house with wonderful little inventions. In Houdini’s home, there were secret panels and hidden passageways. One of those secret panels was in the library, where Houdini had fooled Doyle with his Mene Tekel effect. Houdini (or Ernst) had forced Doyle into putting the blackboard into a corner that covered a secret panel behind some of the books on the shelf. A hidden assistant then opened the panel, removed the books, and stuck a long rod with a magnet on its end. The cork ball Houdini had subtly forced Doyle to choose had a magnetic center so it could be controlled from the rod on the other side of the blackboard. All the hidden assistant had to do was trace out the phrase backward and it would magically appear on the front of the board.

Crucial to Houdini’s method was his ability to hear the conversations of guests who were reposing in the parlor. That room had been completely wired so that every little whisper could be picked up by a series of hidden Dictaphones and transmitted to an operator concealed in the basement. Whatever was said could either be noted down or retransmitted to other parts of the house through an elaborate labyrinth of hidden wires that sometimes even terminated in induction coils under the carpet. For Houdini, on the top floor, to hear these transmissions, he only had to wear an electric belt that established an invisible connection via electromagnetic induction with the loops of wire under the carpet. The belt was composed of many turns of the wire and terminated in a miniature telephone receiver that could be hidden in his hand, the wires running down his sleeve to the belt. For this last test, when Houdini had voluntarily removed his clothing, he relied on a concealed coil that was built into the box. It was a real-life replication of the opening scene of Houdini’s
The Master Mystery
, where, as a secret agent, he eavesdropped on his corrupt boss via a hidden Dictaphone.

Louis C. Kraus, a nephew of Houdini’s who worked for the Treasury Department, which oversaw the Secret Service, had originally wired the house. He may have gotten the idea from Feri Felix Weiss, who worked for the Treasury Department. Weiss was involved in investigating German espionage during World War I, and his article about the use of Dictaphone systems for spying was cut out and pasted by Houdini into one of his scrapbooks. By the time of Houdini’s thought transference experiment in February 1925, the entire surveillance system had been rewired and made more sophisticated by a brilliant, mysterious young magician named Amedeo Vacca. Vacca had established himself as a magician in Chicago when he ran into Houdini at Gus Roterberg’s magic shop in 1921. Impressed by his talent, Houdini wrote down his address and told Vacca that if ever came to New York, his services might be wanted. Two years later, Vacca showed up and Houdini immediately put him on the payroll. He wasn’t just another assistant, though. For the next three years, Vacca became the lynchpin for a side of Houdini’s life that was so secret, it was kept from even Bess and his brother Hardeen.

The young magician was sworn to absolute secrecy. No one was ever to know of the relationship between the two men. They never spoke to each other in public or even showed the slightest sign of recognition when they were in the same room. When Vacca was at any of Houdini’s public appearances, he seemed to be just another spectator, but in reality he was there as an undercover operative. Before Houdini would come to a town to play an engagement, Vacca would make a preliminary visit, examine the facility closely, and install highly secret apparatuses. When they had to meet, Houdini came up with a novel solution. He bought a barbershop two blocks from his Harlem house and sent Vacca to night school for a crash course on the barbering trade. Under the cover of getting a trim, Houdini could plot strategy with Vacca.

“Now I have placed myself, my entire life and salvation, in your hands,” Houdini told Vacca. It wasn’t hyperbole. Houdini was about to begin what would seem to the press as a one-man crusade against phony mediums. He was about to risk his entire reputation, which to him was his life, in this pursuit. In reality, he would be supported by a whole combat division—what he later called “my own secret service”—that consisted of a brilliant mechanist in Vacca, beautiful young female showgirls/undercover agents, private detectives, an eccentric medium/escape artist/poison resister, and even his own niece. The Margery exposure had been just the opening skirmish. Now Houdini was going to war.

Florence B. Rush arrived at Henry Brooks’s house promptly at eleven
A.M.
Sunday morning. Mr. Brooks was still in the middle of a healing session, so Mrs. Brooks showed her to a seat in the makeshift waiting room of their two-story house. Florence told her that she was very interested in mediumistic work and that she wanted to start her own church. She also related that she was a widow, even at her young age, but that her husband had left her quite well off. The two women chatted amiably until Mr. Brooks finally came into the room.

Brooks was nearly sixty, at least a decade older than his redheaded wife. He was wearing a torn gray sweater and his personal hygiene was on a par with his wardrobe. He smiled at Florence and revealed less than a complete set of teeth. Before meeting his new client, he pulled his wife out of the room and into the kitchen for a short conference. A few minutes later he returned and took a seat next to Florence.

“Let me tell you a little bit about myself,” he began. “I’ve been doing spiritualistic work for thirty years now. I am what you call a trance medium. Now some people who come to me for treatments might say I was fresh, but that’s because they don’t understand how magnetic I am and what power comes from the spirits through these hands.”

He held up his hands for Florence to examine.

Without any further ado, Brooks leaned back in his chair. He started breathing heavily, then his head suddenly relaxed and he began to snore. Suddenly his body convulsed a few times.

“Good morning,” he said to the spirits.

“Do you see my husband?” Florence asked.

“Yes, he is right near you,” he answered. “He loves you so.”

“Is he sorry for what he’s done?” she asked.

“Yes, and he asks your forgiveness,” he said. “And there is a little girl right near him. She has beautiful curls. She’s about five years old. Your little girl.”

Florence leaned in to hear him better.

“Your little girl says, ‘Mother, I love you so,’ but she’s not with your husband. She died sooner than him, didn’t she?”

Florence nodded.

“I see someone who speaks a foreign tongue. It sounds to me like Arabic.”

“Yes, that was my grandmother,” Florence said.

He told her that her grandmother was bringing her little girl to her.

“Your husband tells me to tell you to go into this work—you’ll be quite successful,” he said. “How many children have you?”

“Two,” Florence said.

“I was just coming to that,” he said. “You have a beautiful body, but you should not repress your passions. You have a choked feeling in your chest. I can cure that for you for I have healing power. You have to be purified before you can go into this work, you know.”

“Can you ask my husband where I could find someone to assist me in starting my church? I do have all this money that he left me, and I’m anxious to invest it,” she said.

Suddenly it seemed like the spirits themselves were speaking through Brooks.

“
Ask the Medium after you get through, and he will tell you. The Medium is very good, he can give you a charter for your church. The Medium can cure you physically, and you have to be purified before you can do this work.
”

Then the words stopped. Brooks began to breathe heavy and snored and shuddered and suddenly he started rubbing his eyes. He was out of the trance.

“What did I say?” he asked her.

She repeated everything the spirits told her.

“Yes, that can be done,” he said. “I get the vibration that you would be very successful as a public worker and do good work.”

Then he got up and walked into an adjoining room. It was supposed to be a bedroom, but it was devoid of all furniture except for a trunk piled up with papers and a gallon jug filled with a red fluid that was probably wine. He closed the door and after two minutes returned to the room with a framed charter for the First Church of the Divine Light.

“Now this charter cannot be granted to you until you do some spiritual work,” he told her. “And before anything can be granted you still have to be purified. Can you come back tomorrow night?”

“Can I be purified right now?” Florence asked. “I really want to start having séances by Wednesday night.”

Brooks acted reluctant but then he agreed.

“All right, I will purify you now, but have you any corsets on?” he asked. “The steel will interfere in the purification process.”

Florence shook her head. Brooks stared lasciviously at her.

“All right, now fix your dress as I will have to see more of your body and touch your skin. I must get close to the body.”

He put his hands on her neck.

“Can you remove your hat and your wrap?” he asked.

Florence complied. Then she adjusted her underwear, lowering her brassiere so he could see part of her chest.

Brooks began to make several mystic passes over her head, then made the sign of the cross over her face. He ran his hands up and down her spine over her dress and then slowly rubbed the small of her back.

“Lord, please help me to show this new worker the light. Please allow me to remove this congestion so that she may be cured and purified.”

During the prayer, Brooks was touching her all over her body, and then he inserted two fingers inside her dress and touched her left breast. He squeezed it. Florence didn’t resist. He then took his other hand and placed it right on her other breast and squeezed hard, breathing heavily and gasping the whole time. He then made several more crosses over her whole body, running his hands over her thighs and down to her ankles and then returning them to her thighs.

“Dear God, bring this worker closer to me,” he prayed and drew her toward him.

Florence held herself rigid. Brooks tried to pull her to him several more times, but she resisted.

“What do you see?” he asked.

“I see beautiful children who look like little fairies dancing around,” she said. “Now I see a draped figure beckoning me to him.”

Florence got up from the chair and Brooks came up off his knees.

“I feel much better,” she said. “You are very magnetic.”

“We have to try this again as you still have that congestion of the chest,” he said. Florence gave him a ten-dollar bill and he gave her $8 back. She tipped him an extra dollar. She got her ordination papers and paid him an additional five dollars for that. She made sure to get a receipt. He insisted that she undergo some more healing before her first séance and she promised to come back later that night, after she had tended to her children.

Then the new Reverend Florence B. Rush, who was sometimes known as Rev. F. Raud, but whose real name was Rose Mackenberg, left the house and headed straight back to the hotel where Houdini was anxiously awaiting.

On February 7, 1925,
The New York Herald Tribune
made Houdini the subject of their editorial page, titled “Showman and Scientist.” They wrote: “Those of us belonging to that portion of humanity which does not subscribe to belief in the existence of spooks should be grateful to Houdini, the handcuff king…. But the thing that Houdini is fighting is too big for one man. The dragon with which he is engaged dwells in the slough of human ignorance. That is a swamp that is not to be drained and reclaimed for many centuries; yet the extent of the task does not lessen the obligation of this and coming generations to keep working at the job. In the meantime Houdini has invaded the morass and annoyed the monster that feeds there.

“There are in New York, as there are in every other city in the United States, spirit mediums who make a fat living out of the mental insufficiencies of a part of the people. It is, usually, that part which is unattached to a church and lacks the philosophy to find comfort in the thought of a short, conscious existence. That there are such people may serve as a reminder that Jew and Gentile in their churches have for centuries been fighting this battle that Houdini, the son of a rabbi, now wages in his shrewd, dogged manner. This sort of spirit medium is a type of ghoul that seeks profit from the dead outside of graveyards. The victim is the bereaved person whom the affliction of death has caught unprepared by religion or philosophy.

“The claims of ‘Margery’ that she is able to receive at will the spirit of her dead brother are the latest example of the more pretentious medium who seeks scientific indorsement [sic]. The fact that her husband, Dr. L. R. G. Crandon, has some connection with Harvard University gave her séances an extra touch of distinction. In exposing the falseness of ‘Margery’s’ claims Houdini has shown himself far more than a handcuff king. He is a good citizen and a convenient neighbor.”