The Last Illusion

“The nine of spades. Was she right?”


“Yes, she was,” the woman replied.

“Then please open the box and show us your card.”

The woman opened the box. “It’s empty!” she exclaimed.

“How unfortunate. Something must have gone wrong,” Houdini said. “Wait a minute.”

He ran nimbly back onto the stage. “Bess, would you please stand up? I believe you are sitting on something.”

She stood. A card was on her chair. It was the nine of spades.

The audience cheered. Then a black hood was placed over Bess’s head after audience members were given a chance to examine it and declare that nothing could be seen through it. Harry went down into the audience again and asked people to hand him articles. Bess identified, without hesitation, a lady’s handkerchief, a pocket watch, even a photograph of a child.

“This child is no longer with us,” she said. “Am I right? She wants you to know that she is safe and happy where she is.”

There were murmurs through the audience. “Can she contact the spirits?” someone asked. “Can she talk to my dead husband?”

“Ladies and gentlemen, we don’t profess to be spiritualists,” Houdini said. “Bess is—well, let’s just say she has a gift in that direction. But now let’s move on to the part of the show you have all come to see. We now present for you the Metamorphosis, as performed before the great houses of Europe. The Kaiser offered me a thousand marks if I would tell him how it is done. Others have claimed that I can dematerialize my body or that I am in league with the devil. I assure you I am not in league with him.”

A trunk was pushed onto the stage. It was bound with metal straps and held with two large locks. Houdini removed his jacket and his tie. Then he removed his shirt and trousers, so that he wore nothing more than a one-piece, form-fitting costume rather like a pair of combinations that have shrunk in the wash.

“I now invite two strong men from the audience to come up onstage to examine me and this trunk,” he said.

There was a stampede to get to the stage and the first two were allowed up the steps. They were burly young men, both of them, the kind you’d expect to see hanging around some less reputable type of tavern.

“Perfect for the task,” Houdini said. “Now if you would be good enough to search me to see that I carry no tools on my person that might enable me to free myself from any lock or key.”

They duly patted his body and pronounced him clear. Then he opened the trunk. They felt around inside, tried the locks, and nodded.

“Now,” Houdini said. “Here on the table you will find an assortment of handcuffs and leg irons. I invite you gentlemen to examine them, then apply them to my arms and legs any way you see fit.”

The two men went to town, clamping the cuffs and irons on him with his arms tightly behind his back and his legs bound together.

“Thank you, you have been most helpful,” Houdini said. “Don’t go away. I have more work in store for you. Now I ask Madame Houdini to wheel onstage my special cabinet.”

I felt the curtains brush at me as a contraption was wheeled out. It was nothing more than a three-sided frame with velvet drapes, about shoulder-high.

“The bag, if you please, Bess,” Houdini said. He turned to the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen, I shall now place this bag inside the trunk, and ask these gentlemen to help me into it, then tie the drawstring tight. Then when I am in the trunk, they will secure the locks.” He turned back to his volunteers. “Is that clear to you, gentlemen?”

The men nodded again. A drumroll started in the orchestra pit. Bess held open the velvet bag and the men helped Houdini into it. They drew it tight and tied it shut, then they forced the bag, with Houdini in it, into the trunk. The lid was closed, the locks snapped shut. The men returned to their seats.

Now the drumroll increased in tempo. Bess rotated the cabinet so that it concealed the trunk from the audience.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the theater manager announced. “This trunk has about enough air to keep a person alive for about seven minutes. Of course inside a thick velvet bag, that’s another matter altogether. A couple of minutes at the most. We have men standing by offstage with axes, just in case.”

As he finished speaking Houdini sprang up from the cabinet, his hands above his head to reveal he was free of his bonds. The audience broke into thunderous applause. Then Houdini wheeled aside the cabinet. The trunk was still locked, the great fetters quite undisturbed.

“Let’s open it, shall we?” he said, a mischievous smile on his face. “Who knows what it may contain.”

He bent to open one of the locks. Then he frowned, tried again, rattled it.

“The lock is stuck!” he called out. “It’s jammed. Quick—where’s the key? My jacket, quickly.”