“This is the cell that held Charles Guiteau after he assassinated President Garfield,” the warden explained. He gestured toward a heavily reinforced square room with brick walls and a thick combination lock securing the iron door. “The door has been dug three feet into the earth to fortify it.”
“But—it’s occupied!” Bess said. Shaking in the corner of the cell was a large black man with his knees drawn to his chest. He looked terrified.
“Mr. Houdini will be safe, won’t he?” Harry’s press agent, Whitman Osgood, asked the warden. Per the agreement, Harry would be left alone, except for the prisoners, to attempt his escape. Harry laughed. “Whit, I’m the one who asked to do this trick.”
“In an empty cell,” his agent argued.
“We never specified that.”
“Harry, it was assumed.”
Every prisoner housed in this wing was surely a murderer, but Bess felt a wave of compassion for the man in the cell. Everyone was staring at him. “It’s all right,” she told him. “It’s just Harry Houdini. You’ve heard of him, haven’t you?”
“Houdini!” a man called from down the row. “Let us out!”
“We’ll have to search you, of course,” the warden told Harry. “If you choose to go forward, that is?”
“I would expect no less,” Harry replied. He began taking off his shoes and socks. “And yes, I’m going to go on as planned.”
The warden cleared his throat and looked at Harry’s press agent. “Mr. Osgood. I believe it would be prudent for Mrs. Houdini to retreat to the office at this time?”
Bess burst out laughing. “Trust me, Mr. Harris. I’ve seen my husband naked many times before.”
Harry smiled, embarrassed. “Of course you have, dear, but it’s probably best to wait for me there. Or should they handcuff you and lead you off?”
“It’s all right, I’ll go willingly,” she said. She felt the color rush to her cheeks. She was proud of Harry, certainly, but since their trip to Europe it had become clear that he would have more success performing on his own, for exactly such a reason. Many of his escapes required him to expose himself completely to assert the authenticity of the trick. A fully dressed lady beside him, concealing whatever tools a dress might hide, would only discredit her husband.
Bess was escorted to the office and took a seat by the window, where she sipped her tea and listened to the skeptical chatter of the prison guards.
“Do you really think he’ll pull it off today?” one of them asked her.
“Of course.”
The guard shook his head. He was a heavyset man with a thick head of hair. “I’ve been working here for fifteen years. It’s impossible. I’m telling you—”
“But he did escape from Scotland Yard,” one of them interrupted.
“Those good-for-nothin’ Brits.” The heavy guard shook his head. “They don’t know what they’re doing.”
“Guiteau was hanged here, wasn’t he?” Bess asked. “Do things like that ever make you think the place is haunted?”
“I’ve seen all kinds of strange things here,” the guard said. “Things you wouldn’t believe.”
“You’d be surprised how much I would believe.”
The warden and the reporters came into the office. Warden Harris checked his watch. “He’s on the clock now. We’ll see how he does.”
The reporters pulled their chairs around Bess. “Do you know how he does his escapes?” one of them asked her.
Bess always avoided this question; she knew everything, of course, but she liked to keep some mystery around Harry’s acts.
“She’s not gonna tell us that,” the heavy guard said. “Then no one would quit asking her how it’s done.”
The reporter changed angles. “What would you do if Harry fails to escape today?”
Bess smiled. “Do? Why, I would do what I always do around this time of the afternoon. I would go back to the hotel and wash for dinner.”
They were not amused. “But wouldn’t you be upset?”
Bess took a long sip of tea before responding. “My husband, you see, has escaped from far more terrible places than this. I imagine he could even find his way into and out of your homes at night without your ever knowing.”
The men sat back, startled. Before they could muster any response, there was a knock on the door. The warden opened it to find Harry, standing in the corridor with his clothes back on. Bess looked at her watch. It had been exactly twenty-one minutes.
“I let all of your prisoners out,” Harry said, wiping his brow. The guards jumped to their feet. “But then I locked them all in again.”
“What the devil are you talking about?” the warden demanded. The group rushed outside to find the eight other prisoners in the cellblock, including the black man from Guiteau’s cell, locked in entirely different cells than they’d been in before.
Bess lingered in the back of the group with Harry. “You mustn’t do things like that, Harry,” she whispered. “People don’t understand your humor.”
Afterward they took the first train to New York, where Harry had scheduled a series of rehearsals that weekend for an upcoming act. The idleness of waiting for him was difficult. That evening Bess wandered around Macy’s department store, looking for something to occupy her time. The building had opened only a few years before, and the floors and walls still glistened. When she had first become wealthy enough for shopping to be a pastime, the department store had enthralled her. It advertised itself as “a place where almost anything may be bought,” and she was a woman who could buy almost anything. And people had begun to recognize her; the store clerks whispered when she approached, and stepped up to help her before she had even approached the counters. They called her famous.
And she loved the crowds; she loved the soft smells of the perfumes and the long carpeted avenues between displays. But tonight they had been invited to Sherry’s for a party given by the insurance magnate James Hazen Hyde, and she had convinced Harry to give up his work for a few hours. She heard the restaurant had been transformed into a royal French garden for the occasion, with real grass on the floor. And she wanted to surprise Harry with a new dress, one with the scandalously low Gibson girl neckline coming into style.
She found Harry at his desk at home after she had dressed for dinner; he was scribbling furiously in a notebook.
When he saw her in her diamond earrings, a glass of wine in her hand, he stopped writing. “Dear, I don’t think I’m up for dinner tonight. I’m exhausted.”
Bess’s heart sank; he didn’t even mention the dress, how beautiful she looked in it. “That just means you want time to work on your tricks. Instead of spending time with me.” A wave of despair came over her. Didn’t he see how integral she was to his success? She fielded the questions from reporters so he didn’t have to. She sewed his clothes when he ripped them and ran him a bath when his muscles ached from so many rehearsals. His accomplishments in the prison were hers as well as his; she deserved to celebrate with him. And to cancel at the last minute when the hosts had gone to such lengths for the party would be insulting.
He snatched the wineglass from her. “I don’t want you drinking this stuff anymore. You never know what you’re saying when you drink.”
Bess grabbed the glass back, splashing some of the wine onto the carpet. “I know perfectly well what I’m saying. I’ve had one sip. You didn’t even want to come back to New York today until I made you. You hardly even see your mother anymore.”
Harry’s eyes narrowed. He stood up quickly, and Bess winced. She knew better than to imply any kind of disrespect toward his mother. But he only took a napkin from the table and knelt down on his knees to mop up the spill.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I didn’t mean that. I only meant that I’m lonely.”
“How can you be lonely?” Harry demanded, still blotting the stain. “You have everything you could have dreamed of. You’re a society woman now. You can go anywhere you like.”
Bess was quiet. “You know why I’m lonely,” she said finally.
Harry stopped cleaning but did not look up. “I can’t help you with that, Bess. We’re just not meant to have children.”
“We could adopt a child.”
“You have a dog.”
Bess scoffed. “A dog’s no substitute for a child.” Besides, even Carla, their Russian Pomeranian, was always left behind in New York under the care of the housekeeper when they traveled.
“Well, right now we can’t adopt. In a few years, when I’m more secure in my career, then we can talk about it. But you can’t drag a child around the world like this. It’s not fair.” He stood up. “I’m just very, very tired. And we have to pack our cases again tonight. We have to leave earlier than we planned for Atlantic City.”
Bess watched him turn away. “Is it because you’re afraid there’s something wrong with you?” she said. “That maybe you aren’t capable of making a child?” Harry stopped but didn’t turn around. Bess’s voice broke. “Or what if it’s me? Did you ever think about that? Did you ever think about what it would feel like to be a woman who can’t give her husband a baby? What use am I then? You have your work, but what do I have?”
Harry turned around. The hardness in his face had disappeared. He looked sad, and old for the first time in his life. “Bess,” he said. He took her in his arms and ran his fingers through the back of her hair. “You have me.”
“But I don’t have you. We’ve been invited to the most beautiful evening of the season, and you won’t go with me.”
Harry sighed. “You know how I feel about those parties. My head’s just too full of work right now to carry on a conversation about business or politics.”
Bess set her jaw to keep her lip from trembling. She would not let Harry ruin her night. “It’s all right,” she said. “I’ll go alone.”
She expected him to protest, but he only looked at her surprised. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” She picked up her handbag. She thought of the candlelit tables and the chairs garlanded with roses, waiting for her arrival. “I’m very sociable, you know. I can talk about politics all night.”
Young’s Million Dollar Pier had been open for only a few months, but it had become a sensation among tourists. Built as an arcade and amusement hall, it was not yet as famous as Steel Pier, but Harry had chosen it as the location for his jump because the closest jetty was over a hundred yards away. The millionaire John Young, who had built the pier, met them on their arrival and took them to survey the site. He had booked Harry to give a performance to attract attention to his new project. Harry would jump, handcuffed, into the ocean, free himself, and come ashore. The publicity from the jump would help sell tickets to his theater show, which would take place the following three nights in the pier’s theater.
Bess took a liking to Young immediately; he was a natural showman, like Harry. Everything about him was grand, down to his colorful neckties and his perfectly coiffed hair. Part of his charm was his careful attentiveness. He complimented Bess on her filigreed brooch, resting at the base of her neck. “The pier is almost two thousand feet long,” he explained. “But you don’t have to worry. It’s very sturdy; it was built with concrete. There’s a concert hall, a theater, and a telegraph station inside. We are finishing the aquarium right now. There will be sea creatures on display I guarantee you’ve never seen.”
Harry followed them inside, but Bess could tell he was barely listening. His eyes were darting across the room, examining the structure from every angle. It was early springtime, but the ocean was cold and rough, and the sea spray came up to the windows, the salt caking the glass. She wondered if he was concerned. He rarely told her about any hesitations. “My chief task,” he liked to say, “is to conquer my own fear. If I can do that, I can do anything.”
The inside of the pier was like a glamorous hotel. There was music playing softly from a piano across the room, and shining white floors. Young led them toward the center of the building, which opened onto a vast lawn, cluttered with sculptures and small potted trees. “This is my home,” he boasted. “When the post office delivers my mail, they deliver it to Number One Atlantic Ocean.”
Bess was awed. She and Harry had seen a great many spectacles in Europe, but a house in the ocean was not one of them. Across the lawn, the gray stone of Young’s residence glistened like glass.
“I had no idea this was here,” she said. “From the outside, you can’t even tell.” A cold burst of air rushed over the lawn. Bess wrapped her mink stole more tightly around herself. “It is cold, isn’t it, Harry? Perhaps we’d better go inside so you can warm up before you perform.” She could tell he was distracted. He did not like being in the company of others, besides her, for very long.
Harry nodded. “Yes, that’s a good idea.”
Young led them inside the house, and Bess let out of a cry of amazement. The foyer walls were made entirely of colored seashells.
“It’s marvelous.”
“My wife designed the inside,” he explained. “She apologizes that she cannot be here. She has an engagement in New York and won’t be back until tomorrow.”
Young had invited them to stay with him. He showed them to their room so that they could rest before Harry’s stunt, which had been billed for four o’clock that afternoon. Over three thousand people were expected to attend.
The room was more traditionally decorated than the foyer, with silk wallpaper and thick Persian carpets. Bess unlaced her shoes and lay down on the bed.
“The water’s cold today,” Harry said, looking out the window. The room, on the fourth floor of the house, was two stories higher than the pier and looked out over the writhing ocean. “If this were a river, it would be frozen.”
Bess tried to sit up but was suddenly overcome by wooziness. She lay down again and put her hand to her forehead. “Maybe you should postpone the stunt if it’s too cold.”
Harry pressed his hands against the glass. “No. I can survive in cold water.”
“Come here and feel my head. I think it’s very warm.”
Harry sat down next to her and put his palm against her cheeks and forehead. “You are warm. Maybe you shouldn’t be outside today.”
Bess looked at him. “I have to be there!”
“But you really don’t look well,” he assured her. “And you know how you can be with these jumps.”
He was right about that. Of all his tricks, the bridge and pier jumps were the ones she feared the most. He trained for them, submerging himself in ice baths, gradually lowering the temperature to under thirty degrees to ensure that he could still hold his breath in temperatures so low. “Complete mental serenity” he called his experience in the baths. But Bess had her doubts. She suspected the baths were extremely painful, even for him. She tried to disguise her concern, but the danger in bridge and pier jumping was very real. What the audience never knew was that Harry always had with him a rope man, who was instructed to go down and retrieve him if he did not appear after two minutes. This had not happened yet, but certainly one’s luck could not last forever. Harry was often careless with his life. For his Detroit bridge jump, the river had frozen over the night before, and he had had to cut a hole into the ice so he could continue with the performance.
She was feeling poorly, it was true, but she was still saddened by their argument the night before. She hated the coldness that came over Harry whenever he was immersed in his work. While her ability to see through his new tricks had once enthralled him, recently it seemed to frustrate, and even insult, him. When he was attentive to her, he was the most loving man. But now he seemed to be more attentive to his work than to her, on an endless quest to earn larger audiences, greater fame. She suspected it was a result of his having achieved a little fame, but not enough to secure their future. She knew he worried over how to keep himself relevant in an increasingly competitive field. Whenever word reached him that another magician had stolen one of his tricks or claimed he could outdo
him, Harry would rush off to the magician’s next performance to challenge the man and reclaim his title. She felt so much less a part of his world than she had when they had shared the stage. The more success he achieved on his own, the more Bess’s value seemed to lie in assuring his emotional well-being, boosting the confidence that waxed and waned according to his publicity.
Finally she agreed to stay inside and rest for the afternoon. Harry kissed her forehead distractedly and went out to meet his rope man and the rest of the crew, who had just arrived on the train, and to examine the site of the jump more closely. Bess changed into a silk robe, lay on her side, and tried to sleep. Outside she could hear the wind rattling the windows. The sky was growing gray, and the clouds were coming in.
Ten minutes after Harry left, there was a knock on the door. Relieved, she climbed woozily out of bed and padded her way, barefoot, across the carpet. Of course he had come back to ask her to go with him to the jump. He needed her.
But it wasn’t Harry in the hall; it was Young, bearing an armful of white towels.
“My wife told me to put these in your room, but I forgot,” he confessed.
Bess blinked. “Thank you. I didn’t notice they were missing.” Surely someone as rich as he had staff to do such things? “Harry’s just left.”
Young looked at his watch. “Of course. I should be going out there soon as well. It’s already past three o’clock. When are you going down?”
“Actually, I’m staying here to rest. I’m not feeling well.” She wondered if he could read from her expression that they had had an argument.
“I’m so sorry to hear that.” Young looked past her into the room. “Do you mind if I set these down?”
Bess took a step backward. “Of course, I’m sorry. It is your house after all. Please come in.”
Young closed the door behind him and set the towels on a table by the window. Looking at the sky, he said, “It’s a good thing we’re doing this within the hour. There’s bad weather coming in.”
Mrs. Houdini Page 16