The Last Illusion

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, straight from the royal courts of Europe, I bring you a man—nay, a superhuman—whose feats defy the imagination!” the announcer roared. “Who defies death every time he steps onstage, as we witnessed last night when his lovely wife almost came to a tragic end. I give you the one, the only, the King of Handcuffs, Houdini!”


Houdini stepped out to receive the adulation of the crowd. He held up his hands. “I must apologize that my wife is not with me tonight. As you know, something went horribly wrong the other night and my poor Bess nearly died of suffocation. She is luckily well on her way to recovery but won’t be well enough to perform with me for a while. So tonight we’ll begin with the handcuff challenge. Who has come to try and win the hundred-dollar prize?”

Three men came up onstage. Harry looked at their handcuffs and nodded. “I tell you what,” he said, “to make things a little more interesting, let’s put all three pairs on at once.”

The three men complied. Houdini turned his back on the audience. We could see his shoulders moving as he worked himself free. A minute went by. Five minutes. I was beginning to feel alarmed. Surely it shouldn’t take this long? I could feel the tension in the audience mounting. Then suddenly he spun around, holding up three pairs of handcuffs and laughing delightedly.

Then he called up more men from the audience, had them handcuff him, put leg irons on him, and place him in the bag, inside the trunk. He instructed the men to latch the trunk, then hold up a velvet curtain in front of it. A hush fell on the audience. I have to say that I was holding my own breath. I wondered who might have the key tonight, should he not be able to get it open. But after less than a minute one of the men holding the curtain was tapped on the shoulder, and there was Houdini standing behind him. The curtain was whisked aside to reveal the trunk, still firmly latched. Houdini then opened it with great flourish to reveal it was empty. The crowd went wild. I’d been sitting a few feet away and I hadn’t seen how he’d escaped from the trunk. I began to believe that he might be superhuman after all.

“More! More!” The word echoed through the crowd. I could see that the act, though astonishing, was now too short. As the men made their way down from the stage Houdini held up his hand and approached the audience.

“You give me no choice but to perform something I find painful and dangerous,” he said, “but will demonstrate the ultimate limits of my power. This time I invite ten men to come up onstage.”

There was a buzz through the audience. Those who had seen Houdini before could not think what this illusion was going to be. The men ran eagerly up the steps. Houdini wheeled forward a trolley and whisked the cloth from a small tray.

“On this tray, gentlemen,” he said, slowly and deliberately because the audience couldn’t actually see, “you will see ten common, ordinary sewing needles. I’d like you to test them to see that there is nothing strange about them and that they are indeed sharp.”

Needles were tested.

“Now,” Houdini continued, “I would like you each to take one of the needles and pierce my face with it—anywhere but my eyes.”

A gasp came from the audience. The men hesitated.

“Go ahead,” Houdini said. “Try my cheek first.”

One by one the needles pierced his cheeks. It was horrible to watch, but strangely enough, he did not appear to be bleeding.

Then he removed the needles and, one by one, he put them into his mouth and ate them. I could actually hear them being crunched. Then he had the men examine his mouth to make sure he had swallowed them all.

“Needles are no use without thread,” he said and promptly swallowed a length of sewing thread. A hush fell over the audience. Houdini nodded to the orchestra pit. A drumroll began. He put his hand to his mouth, gagged and acted as if he was about to vomit. The men stepped hastily away from him. Then he reached into his mouth and started to pull out a piece of thread. Out it came, longer and longer, and the audience gasped as all ten of the needles were threaded on it. At last he held up the thread triumphantly, the needles glistening in the stage lights.

The applause was thunderous. Even the men onstage applauded. The curtain came down, then Houdini went through the center opening to take several more bows. He came back, looking flushed and triumphant.

“You see what the job of the illusionist is, don’t you, Molly?” he said. “Always keep them surprised and guessing. The audience never has to know what is coming next.”

“Those needles,” I said, staring at his face, because it showed no signs of having been pierced, “don’t they hurt? How do you make sure they don’t get stuck in your throat?”

He laughed. “My dear, you should know by now: an illusionist never gives away his secrets. But I’ll tell you one thing—that’s a trick I wouldn’t want on the bill every night. I had to do it tonight because I guessed they’d want more than I had to offer. Tomorrow let’s hope that we can soften them up with the mind reading first.”

And so I went home, having agreed to meet him at the theater at eleven o’clock the next morning.