The walls, she noticed, were peculiarly bare. In the hallway he had framed three photographs of the boardwalk, which, she assumed, he had taken for the newspaper. Besides these, there was no other artwork in the house. There were no photographs of family or friends, no stacks of books lying about, no indication of what kind of man lived there at all. It was a beautiful, empty house, and he seemed to her suddenly a very lonely boy who was pretending to be grown up. She saw now that he hadn’t really come to a decision about his future at all.
She wandered into the parlor, where a tiny upholstered sofa stood, alone, in the center of the room. Charles leaned against the doorway, his hands in his pockets, enjoying the look of surprise on her face as she explored the house.
“You know, Charles, I was wrong about you. I accused you of deception and selfishness—all the bad sides of Harry, perhaps. But the truth is you have many of his good qualities. I don’t think you’ve let the boy grow out of you yet. That was one thing about Harry. He was always young. Even as I got older, he was always young.”
Charles’s smirk disappeared. “I know you’re certain he was trying to find me all those years. But what if you’re wrong? What if he knew where I was all along? I’m not sure I want to be his son.” On the train, Bess and Gladys had shown him the letters they’d found in Harry’s desk. Charles had confirmed that his name had indeed once been Romario Tardo.
“He didn’t know,” Gladys said. “Truly he didn’t.” She lowered herself onto the sofa, and Bess sat next to her.
“What I am certain of,” Bess said, “is that there is some sort of message he’s trying to send, and you’re the only one who can help decipher it.” She reached up and clasped his hand. “You’re the key to all of this.” Her fingers trembled as she took the postcard from her purse. “You read the newspapers when Arthur Ford revealed the code Harry left for me. I suppose . . . I could have loved Arthur, given enough time. But more than that, he almost shattered my hope of ever seeing Harry again.” She removed her gloves. She had looked at these hands every day of her life; Harry had touched these hands. But now they were worn. “I told you I thought there was a message from Harry embedded in your photographs. But what I didn’t have a chance to tell you before—before our argument—was what that message was. It was a second code.”
Charles was stunned. “A second code? Do you know what this means, how many people would be dying to get their hands on that information?”
Bess nodded. “It was to be, Harry said, a safeguard of sorts. No one knew of its existence but us.” She handed him the postcard. “In the past week alone, I have found parts of this code in three photographs. All of which were taken by you.”
Charles looked at the card and nodded. “So where is the code in this one?”
Bess hesitated. Once she said it out loud, there would be no going back. There was no third code. If Charles broke her trust and sold her secret, Harry might never be able to come back to her. She would never know what had happened to him.
“There was a song I sang,” she said, running her hands over her wedding ring, “when I first met him. Not ‘Rosabel’—another song. He was barely Harry Houdini then. His name was Ehrich Weiss.” She hummed the tune for Charles.
I’ll take you home again, Kathleen
across the ocean wild and wide
to where your heart has ever been
since first you were my bonnie bride.
She gestured toward the door. “In the front pocket of my case, there, are the other two photographs.”
Charles rummaged through the case and retrieved the photographs. Bess motioned for him to sit beside her. “This one—this was the first I found.” She unfolded the magazine article about the Miss America pageant. “See here, how the billboard and the caption together read ‘Home Again Kathleen’? And this one. Your photograph of the yacht—I only had the billboard, so I had a smaller copy photographed to take with me—‘Home Again.’ And the postcard.” She pointed to the flowery script at the top of the card. “The ocean, wild and wide.”
Charles studied the pictures carefully. “I see the phrases from the song, yes. But—”
Gladys finished his question. “But don’t you think there’s still a chance this could be a coincidence? That you wanted to find evidence of the code so badly that you found a connection where there was none?”
Bess laughed. “A coincidence? That all these photographs were taken by a son I never knew existed?”
“True,” Gladys said. “But what do you hope to gain from this, in the end? Let’s say Harry is trying to communicate with you—”
“Which he is.”
“Yes. What do these photographs tell us, other than that he made it to the other side? Maybe the purpose was simply to bring you and Charles together. Maybe there’s nothing more to it than what you’ve already discovered—each other.”
“No. There’s more to it than we’ve seen so far. There’s a message hidden here.” Bess looked at Charles. “When he died, I think Harry intended to come back for me. Physically, I mean. If he could find a way.”
Charles ran his hands over the photographs. “So you’re saying that . . . what you hope to gain from all this—is that you think you will actually see him?”
Bess nodded. “Yes. Somehow, I will.”