Doyle’s face reddened. “What are birthdays on the other side? It is the death day which is the real birthday.”
Bess shook her head. “How can you say such things?”
“Mrs. Houdini, you are treading on dangerous ground. You invite us into your house and then disrespect my wife’s abilities. You are showing the greatest lack of hospitality,” Sir Arthur warned.
Harry finally spoke. “That’s enough, Bess.”
Bess spun to face him. “How can you defend him, Harry? His wife’s just tried to threaten you!”
“Because he doesn’t know any better.”
Doyle grabbed his wife’s hand. “Jean, we are leaving.” He turned to Harry. “You have ruined a great friendship, you know.” He stomped into the hallway and took their coats from the closet. At the doorway, he seemed to hesitate. Without looking back, he murmured, sadly, “Harry, you are to me a perpetual mystery.”
Harry watched as they left and did not try to stop them. But Bess could see he was visibly shaken, as was Gladys. When they were gone she regained her composure and realized what she had done. “Darling, I’m sorry I lost my temper,” she said.
Gladys shook her head. “The woman was a fraud. There was nothing remotely reminiscent of my mother’s voice in her writings. Although I do think Sir Arthur wholeheartedly believes his wife is a medium. I feel sorry for him. Imagine what he has to lose if he decides to confront the truth. His faith, his marriage—it all crumbles before him.”
Bess took Harry’s hand. “Are you mad at me, my love?”
“No.” Harry shook his head, but he wouldn’t look at her. He stared through the windows into the darkness as if in a trance. “I was willing to believe,” he mused. “Even wanted to believe. My heart was beating so hard. I hoped I might feel my mother’s presence . . .”
“But surely you cannot—”
He stopped her. “No. Of course not. My mother was a devoutly Jewish woman. It does not stand to reason that she would have begun her communication with the sign of the cross.”
Bess stared at him. “So you were skeptical from the beginning?”
Harry nodded. “I wanted to believe,” he said again. “But we can’t blind ourselves to the truth.” He sighed. “And it doesn’t mean I can’t be disappointed by it.”
Bess thought he had put his hope to the test so often that it was remarkable that any remained.
“The spiritualists—they are going to kill me, you know. Every night they are praying for my death, because I dare to speak out against them.”
Bess shuddered. “Don’t say those things, Harry.” She couldn’t bear the idea that he would ever willingly give up on life, when he had spent night after night of his career fighting for it onstage.
Harry shrugged. “But you know it’s true. They despise me. Why try to pretend otherwise?”
Chapter 16
THE MESSAGE
June 1929
Bess drove recklessly through the streets of Atlantic City, swerving to avoid the clusters of women in their bathing outfits and straw hats on their way from the beach, laughing down the sidewalks, past the rows of white frame houses with silver chimes. The sky was purpling, and she felt a sense of urgency as she had never felt before. I am waiting for you at Young’s Pier. This had to be the message Harry had hidden for her in the photographs. She felt, in her heart, that, by some means, he had done it. Harry had called to her, and she would go. She did not know what she would say when she met him. What do you say to someone after such long years apart? Where does one begin?