The Last Greatest Magician in the World

by Jim Steinmeyer

  Grace was dumbfounded by the message. The appearance of that money seemed to be the most incredible miracle her husband had ever accomplished. She knew that they weren’t due any money. Howard grandly autographed a note empowering Britt to pick up the money, and then escorted the relieved lawman to the station. As the couple were finally free of the lawman, watching his train depart for Lamar, Grace turned to ask her husband, “Where did you get that telegram?”

  “Maybe someone sent us two hundred dollars,” Howard shrugged.

  But she knew her husband too well. “What’s the grift?”

  He opened his hand; he’d been palming the torn corner of the telegram, identifying that it originated in Cripple Creek. Thurston had sent the message to himself, from Cripple Creek to Colorado Springs, and then torn away the address line.

  Of course, there were no jobs in Helena or St. Louis. Thurston rattled off those cities to throw poor Britt off the scent. “Don’t worry,” Thurston told her. “Britt won’t want his fellow citizens to know what a stagestruck fool he is. We’ll never hear from him again.” The couple picked up their trunks and set off for Denver.

  They were broke again. They contemplated selling the apparatus and costumes for a few dollars. “There’s one prop we don’t have to sell,” Howard said, eyeing his pet duck in his specially built carrying case. “We can eat him as he is.” Howard and Grace couldn’t actually bring themselves to kill and dress poor Socrates, but a friendly local butcher agreed to the deed. Socks had the last quack. As an experienced professional, flapping and strutting onstage, he had become tough and stringy. For years after that, Howard and Grace laughed about the most miserable day of their careers, “the day we ate the duck.”

  THE THURSTONS HAD SECURED another booking at a Denver honky-tonk. Howard later claimed to be working at the Alcazar, but the couple was probably appearing at a less reputable, unnamed spot in the city’s red-light district. A magician named Hellmann, a student of Alexander Herrmann, was also appearing in town. He stopped in to watch the young card manipulator at work and admired his new Rising Card trick.

  Days later, the Herrmann the Great company arrived in town for an engagement at the Tabor Grand Opera House, Denver’s leading theater. Here was another chance for Thurston see a real magic show, and perhaps another opportunity to find work from a great magician. Thurston plotted a way to attend the performance; his busy schedule of shows at the local saloon prevented him from buying a ticket.

  The Herrmann show had changed. In December 1896, Alexander Herrmann, Herrmann the Great, the charming, satanic performer who had inspired Thurston in his youth, succumbed to a heart attack as he was touring through New York state. He was mourned by the world of magicians and Broadway theater professionals. His widow, Adelaide, was determined to carry on with the show, and assistants and managers agreed to remain with the Herrmann the Great company, continuing their tours. Adelaide wired to Leon Herrmann, Alexander’s twenty-nine-year-old French nephew, offering him the starring role.

  Alexander had actually intended Leon as his successor, and Leon was a trained magician, performing in salons and the Folies Bergère in Paris. But his principle qualification seems to have been the family resemblance. Leon had thick black hair and a goatee. His uncle was known for his bubbling personality and bonhomie, as well as his hilarious French-accented English. By contrast, Leon spoke very little English. He was bloodless onstage, haughty and difficult offstage. Worst of all, he had never seen his uncle’s show. When Leon Herrmann arrived in America, in January 1897, he knew less about Herrmann the Great than almost any theater fan in the country.

  The new show was cobbled together from Leon’s own tricks, Adelaide’s special illusions and dance routines, and some of his uncle’s favorite effects. In an effort to introduce Leon to the American public and offer him a primer in magic, the show had taken an uncomfortable step backward, offering old, tried-and-true features from Herrmann’s warehouse.

  In Denver, Hellmann met his old friend Billy Robinson on the street. Robinson had been a longtime assistant and confidant of Alexander Herrmann and was now the stage manager of Leon and Adelaide’s show. During the course of their conversation, Hellmann raved about the wonderful new Rising Card trick that he’d seen Thurston perform. Robinson listened intently, twisting the tip of his mustache, and admitted that the trick sounded interesting. He explained that he wouldn’t have a chance to go and see it—there’s just too much to do with the Herrmann show—but if Hellmann saw the young man again—his name was Thurston, right?—Robinson would like to meet him.

  That was the coincidental sequence of events that led to October 22, 1898. On that day, Thurston played his part in an astonishing performance and a controversial meeting of four of the world’s greatest magicians. The incident displayed his distinctive mixture of ignoble confidence games, personal desperation, and a masterful talent to amaze and surprise.

  SIX

  “THE APPOINTMENT”

  Billy Robinson was one of the most important magicians produced by America, but the public almost never heard his name. He was born in 1861 in New York into a theatrical family, and then learned magic from the inside, by working at Anthony and Francis Martinka’s famous Manhattan emporium of magic—a store and workshop that created the specialties for magicians around the world.

  Robinson teamed up with a saloon showgirl, Olive Path; her diminutive size earned her the nickname Dot. Their early act landed them positions with Harry Kellar’s touring magic show, where Billy presented his own magic, worked as an onstage assistant, and supervised the show backstage. Dot took part in Kellar’s illusions. The duo became renowned magic assistants. Billy was discreet, dependable, and knowledgeable about every aspect of the theater and magic. Dot was the perfect size for wriggling through a trapdoor.

  They were so good that the Robinsons were hired away from Kellar by Alexander Herrmann, America’s greatest magician. The Robinsons admired Kellar for his hard work and professionalism, and Herrmann for his instinctual talent and offstage bonhomie. For several seasons, they were traded and back and forth between Herrmann and Kellar, like prized players on a baseball team.

  Something about these frantic seasons, and Robinson’s heady work between the two rivals, hardened his personality. His knowledge of both shows—all the secrets—compromised his discretion and involved him in espionage. Herrmann began including copies of Kellar’s illusions; Kellar quizzed his employee about Herrmann’s tours. Robinson, once the dependable figure behind the scenes, became both valued and feared for this treachery. He gradually achieved the lofty reputation of the man responsible for each magician’s success.

  Billy and Dot Robinson had been traveling with Alexander Herrmann when he died, and they were quickly recruited for the new Herrmann show, starring Adelaide and Leon. They found Adelaide to be suspicious and manipulative. More than likely, her tough business sense was inspired by her late husband’s careless spending and lavish lifestyle, which had left her with a raft of unpaid bills. “[Alexander Herrmann] was all right,” Robinson wrote to a friend. “He made friends, and his wife made them into enemies for him. She used everyone for a sucker.”

  The situation was even more uncomfortable when Leon arrived. He was younger than Billy Robinson, far less experienced in magic, and completely unfamiliar with his uncle’s specialties. Leon chafed at the magic lessons from his American associates. Billy and Dot resented the way they were supposed to teach this imposter to impersonate Herrmann the Great. Robinson confided to a friend that Leon was “one the dumbest fellows I ever saw.” The show was still titled The Herrmann the Great Company, trading on Alexander Herrmann’s famous reputation, but there no longer was a “Great” holding the troupe together. By the time the company reached Denver, the atmosphere backstage crackled and sparked with tension.

  IN THE LOBBY of Denver’s Tabor Grand Opera House, Howard and Grace ogled the colorful lithographs. One, titled “Leon Herrmann’s Art of Palming,” portrayed a montage of Leon’s
hands in various positions, manipulating balls and coins, concealing them in his hands. Thurston pulled out a deck of cards, stood beneath the poster, and began his sequence of manipulations. Perhaps, he thought, he could attract some admirers in the theater lobby. Even better, Herrmann might challenge him. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was doing, but he was desperate to steal a few rays of Herrmann’s spotlight. Some passersby watched his performances, but Herrmann’s company was too smart to call attention to the upstart magician. Thurston dashed back to the saloon for his own performances and returned to entertain Herrmann’s patrons before the evening show.

  During one of these impromptu shows, Grace noticed a man standing at the back, coolly admiring Thurston’s manipulations as he twisted the tip of his mustache. The man pushed his way to the front of the crowd and offered his hand. “You’re the one doing the Rising Cards at the local joint,” he said. “You’ve seen it?” Howard asked. The man shook his head. “No, I didn’t have a chance. But I hear you’ve got something, a real corker. If you come by tomorrow afternoon, I’d like to talk to you about it. I’ll be backstage. I’m Billy Robinson.”

  As Grace and Howard hurried from the lobby to their own show, Thurston was dumbfounded. “Billy Robinson!” he kept repeating. “He’s supposed to know more about magic than any man living. They call him the magician maker!”

  The next day, Thurston arrived at the theater alone and was led to a small workroom under the stage, where Billy Robinson was surrounded by props—the cloth covers, metal stands, and bouquets of silk posies—that were used in the Herrmanns’ show. He was repairing a secret compartment in a metal vase, holding solder against a red-hot tool. Billy stopped his work and signaled for Thurston to draw up a chair.

  “I see you’re a student of Dr. Elliott,” Robinson said. Thurston nodded mutely, surprised to be plunged into a discussion of card trickery. “I can tell those moves are from Elliott, by how you transfer to the front palm. It’s the right way to do it.” Billy picked up a deck of cards and plucked a single card off the top. He then performed a short sequence of back palming, effortlessly, perfectly, rotating his empty hand in the air. “It’s the thumb that covers the movement, isn’t it?” Robinson drawled. He had been one of the first to be taught by Elliott, one of the first initiates to the precious new maneuver. Thurston swallowed hard. He had spent the night rehearsing various propositions and boasts about his card routine, but Robinson quickly pulled the rug from beneath him.

  “So, tell me about your Rising Cards,” Robinson said.

  “Well, I’m sorry that I can’t actually do it for you right here,” Thurston started. He stood, acting out the sequence of moves. He demonstrated how he had cards selected, and returned to the deck. Then he struck a dramatic pose, with his hand held over the imaginary cards. As he reached the crescendo, he said, “The card rises straight up, right up through the air into my hand.” Robinson nodded perfunctorily, looked down at his soldering, and returned to work.

  “Yep, that’s what I thought,” he said. “It was in a German book some years ago, and then in Roterberg’s book. A horizontal thread and a hook card. It’s interesting because the thread is horizontal.... A nice touch.” Thurston smiled. He couldn’t argue with the magic expert, who must have been familiar with Roterberg’s New Era Card Tricks; Robinson had even contributed a trick to the contents of the book.

  “Well, I won’t say if you’re right or wrong,” Thurston tried equivocating, his voice dropping as he slid back into his chair. “But I am sure you know the trick.”

  He’d just failed as a magician. There was a long pause as he watched Robinson drip solder onto the metal vase. Thurston now switched to the con.

  “You know, if I can show my trick to Herrmann, maybe I can sell it to him. That is, if I needed to make a little money, you’d understand....”

  Robinson looked up at him. With Grace back at the hotel, Thurston needed to develop his own sob story. “I won’t forget your kindness,” he continued. “I am hard up. My wife is sick, and right now we’re working in a dive. I must have some money and this might be my chance.... You won’t spoil my game, will you?”

  Billy smiled. “No, of course not. You won’t get him to your saloon, but you could perform it on our stage. Tell him you’ll do it this afternoon. Tell him you talked to me. Herrmann’s staying at the Palace Hotel.”

  A great assistant, a loyal assistant, would have protected the magician. After all, Billy Robinson’s job was to advise Leon Herrmann as an expert in magic. But he had more sympathy for the destitute card magician, the total stranger. He might have thought it would be funny, or humiliating, if the sophisticated Paris magician were to be fooled by a published card trick.

  The secret of any great con game is the moment when the mark, the victim, constructs a con game in his own mind. The hotel managers accepted Thurston’s cheap watches because they greedily thought they were taking advantage of a desperate young man who had stupidly offered a precious, jewel-encrusted watch in exchange for a modest hotel bill. That’s the point at which the mark becomes complicit, and the success of the confidence game is assured. When Thurston left the Tabor Grand that afternoon, Robinson was ready to serve as the accomplice. Or maybe—this was the most wonderful part of the plan—it now seemed to be Robinson’s con game, and Thurston was the accomplice.

  THURSTON PICKED UP GRACE, and they both ran to the Palace Hotel, asking for Mr. Herrmann. The magician met them in the lobby, bowing with courtly grace. Thurston was momentarily dumbstruck. Leon showed a definite resemblance to his wonderful uncle, the same dark eyes and expressive, bobbing eyebrows. But something was wrong; it was as if he were a burlesque actor playing Herrmann. Leon spoke with an impenetrable French accent and made himself clear only with a series of cartoonish, exaggerated gestures—shrugging, frowning, or spreading his fingers and then slowly separating his hands, as if he were holding an ever-expanding balloon.

  Leon Herrmann was intrigued to hear about the trick, but puzzled when Thurston explained that he couldn’t perform it there, at the hotel. He offered to present it on Herrmann’s stage.

  Herrmann grimaced. “Eem-poss-ee-buhl! On my stage? Ziss iss eem-poss-ee-buhl!”

  “Mr. Herrmann,” Grace interrupted, talking slowly. “You might think that we would need to move your equipment or touch any of your props. But we wouldn’t.” Thurston added, “Mr. Robinson will supervise everything.” Herrmann reluctantly agreed, telling the couple that he would come to the theater that afternoon.

  As they dashed from the hotel, Howard surprised his wife by making a sharp turn and careening through the doors of the Denver Post building. Once his heels reached the shiny terrazzo floor, Thurston stopped, smoothed his hair, stepped over to the man behind the desk, and politely asked for the city editor’s office. “I have a news story,” he announced, catching his breath. The man pointed his thumb at the newsroom upstairs. Howard and Grace bounded up the stairs and pushed their way through the door.

  The editor listened to Thurston’s boast and suggested that it would only be a news story if the great magician would actually admit that he was fooled. He thought it was unlikely. But Thurston’s enthusiasm won him over, and he agreed to supply a reporter, who could hide in the wings and watch the impromptu performance.

  Howard and Grace circled back to their hotel room and filled their pockets with their special playing cards, a package of small brads, and rolls of fine silk thread. On the way to the Tabor Opera House, they stopped at a hardware store to buy a tack hammer. They couldn’t pick up their tools at the honky-tonk, as by now they’d missed the afternoon performances and couldn’t risk the wrath of the manager.

  STANDING ON Leon Herrmann’s stage that afternoon, Thurston was momentarily transfixed. There was Alexander Herrmann’s gold-leaf Louis Quatorze table, the one he’d seen the magician use when he was a boy. Thurston knew that the surface was adorned with a sophisticated system of trapdoors and secret compartments. Pushed to one side was the distinctive Artis
t’s Dream illusion, and hanging from one edge of the framework was Herrmann’s blazing red Mephistopheles cloak. Bolted to the floor, behind the back curtain, was a frame of metal that had been carefully wrapped in canvas. Thurston knew that it must have been the secret device used in Trilby, the levitation illusion he’d seen, in which Madame Herrmann took the role of Svengali’s beautiful protégée. The darkened stage seemed haunted by visions from Thurston’s youthful dreams; the scenery smelled of layers of turpentine and paint, the legacy of seasons on the road, and the wooden floor creaked mysteriously under each step. “So charged was the silence with the personality of the man, all that I remember,” he later wrote, “is that as I stood there, around the paraphernalia that had once belonged to the master of all magicians, I was suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of unreality.”

  Thurston regained his senses with a familiar “tap, tap” sound. Grace was using the tack hammer to pound several brads into the edges of the scenery. She had begun to stretch threads across the stage for the Rising Card trick.

  They waited, walking in tight circles, whispering to themselves. Herrmann didn’t show up.

  The reporter balked; he’d been waiting in darkness at the side of the stage, but wondered if the meeting would ever happen. Billy Robinson assured Thurston that Herrmann must have taken an unexpectedly long dinner. He would have to arrive for his own show that night.