“Don’t be cross, my dear. Give me a kiss.”
“Oh, all right.” Bess kissed his puppet with hers and leaned toward his lips behind the stage. Harry grinned and cupped her brassiere.
“Stop!” Bess slapped his hand away. She whispered, “Do you want to get fired?”
“I didn’t come all the way down here to do some dumb puppet show. Who wrote this script anyway?”
“I don’t know. Welsh said do Punch and Judy before our magic. When we start getting known for our real act we can stop.” In front of the curtain, she maneuvered her puppet’s arms around Punch. “You have sweet lips,” she said in Judy’s high, shrewish voice. “Will you dance with me?”
Punch hit Judy on the nose. “Get out of the way! You don’t dance well enough for me! Go and fetch the baby.”
Bess raised her voice. “You get the baby, you lazy idiot. I’m making the dumplings.”
Bess shoved the puppet baby toward Harry. For the next part of the act, Punch was supposed to get annoyed at its wailing and hit its head against the wall.
“I can’t do it,” Harry whispered.
The audience began to boo. “Git the hook!” one of them cried. “Git ’em outta here!”
Harry stood up from behind the curtain. “Oh, all right!” he cried, throwing down his puppet. “I don’t like this damn doll show any more than you do. Let’s get on with the magic!”
The audience hooted. Bess dropped her puppet, relieved, and stood up beside Harry.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Harry began with a flourish. “I am Harry Houdini, and this is my assistant, Madame Houdini. We are the Master Monarchs of Modern Mystery, and today, you will be the first to witness the greatest novelty mystery act in the world!”
The audience cheered.
Bess retrieved a pair of handcuffs from inside a black bag. “Now you can see,” Harry went on, “that I have nothing—no keys—up my sleeve. Any escapes will be completely unaided and authentic.” He held up his arm. “Now Madame Houdini is going to handcuff my hands behind my back.”
Bess secured the handcuffs tightly. It was a new innovation to the Metamorphosis trick that Harry had devised on one of their afternoon walks through town, when they had passed a man with his hands behind his back being led into the local police station. “Now,” Harry said, “you may have seen ordinary escape tricks before. But I can assure you this is no ordinary escape. We are not using ropes. There has never before been an escape done while handcuffed.”
Bess felt surprisingly at ease. Her new role in Harry’s magic was much more thrilling than her short-lived singing career. She hadn’t been able to draw men’s eyes the way Anna had, but her childlike size was perfectly suited to the manipulations Harry’s tricks required. What was more, Harry was more confident when she was beside him onstage. He seemed to her the best version of himself.
Bess pulled the large cloth bag over Harry’s head and secured it at the top, so he was completely unseen. Then she guided him into the trunk, which she locked and strapped with a long belt. She looked out into the faces of the crowd; their chewing had stopped. She had their attention now. She stood on top of the trunk and drew a curtain in front of herself so that only her head was visible, then announced, “When I clap my hands three times, I will have disappeared. You will all be witness to a marvelous mystery, performed with the greatest speed and dexterity.” Then she drew the curtain completely above her head and clapped three times. With the third clap, the curtain dropped, and Harry was standing on the trunk in Bess’s place.
His hands were uncuffed and resting on his hips. The crowd murmured.
“Where’s your pretty assistant?” one of the men called.
“She probably just ran offstage,” someone else said.
“Offstage?” Harry feigned confusion. “Oh, no.” He stepped off the trunk and began to undo the belts. “You see, she’s inside this trunk.”
The crowd burst into applause.
Backstage, on the lawn behind the tent, Bess wiped the sweat from her forehead. “How many of these do we have to do today?”
“Ten,” Harry said. “Give or take.”
“I’m exhausted already. I don’t know how you do it.”
Harry tapped his foot in the grass. He was as spirited as a caged animal. He beamed at her. “Didn’t you see? They loved us.”
Welsh came striding toward them from inside the tent, frowning.
“Uh-oh,” Bess said. “We made a mess of his Punch and Judy.”
Welsh stuck out his hand. “Helluva magic act, Houdini,” he said. “But you ain’t no comedian. Scratch the Punch and Judy from now on. Have Bess start with a song instead.”
“I can do that,” she said, relieved.
“You two got a good thing going. Needs some polish though. Don’t rush through it as much. You need to drag it out more.”