July 2026

Lesley McDowell, The Illusionist

9

Atlantic City, June 1922

Arthur and I had learned to be alert to traps that others laid for us.  

Mr Houdini had learned to escape traps that he laid for himself.

That Mr Houdini was such a little man was always a surprise. Tiny and squirming in a too-large white suit, trailing jacket cuffs and trouser hems, he could startle an unwary person approaching him from behind, simply by revealing that he was in fact, an adult, and not a child playing grownups. To me, that was his greatest trick.

The day after Arthur and I lunched with Mr Houdini and his wife, Bess, at their home in Harlem, the little man came alone to our hotel room in Atlantic City. We were on another trip to America, and I thought I was prepared for the odd combination of that angry old man’s face on a child’s body. But it still had the power to unsettle me, and he noted my alarm instantly he entered the room, though perhaps not the reason for it.

‘You having second thoughts about this, Lady Doyle?’ he said. He always spoke my title as though we were playing some sort of game, and my role in it was a false one. I was already seated at the table. The hotel room was large enough for a seating area separate from the bedroom, which comprised a plain sofa, round table, four chairs, and a small dresser with soda water, whisky and glasses on top. ‘Not at all,’ I murmured, but Arthur had already guided him past as I was speaking, so that he became a blob of white moving through the dark of the room.  

We had arranged the séance the day before at lunch, as he and Arthur had argued pleasantly about the after-life. Mr Houdini’s voice was so coarse to my ear, though, and his gestures so condescending, that my offer of a séance had to be made to him. And once made, he had to accept. What man could refuse the chance to hear the voice of his dear, long-departed mother?    

So, on this day in the hotel, I was to be the conduit for the late, adored Mrs Weisz. Mr Houdini seemed more amused by that role of mine than even by my title, when he removed his straw hat and settled himself at the table. ‘How long you been – practising, would you call it, Lady Doyle? Your mediumship, I mean.’

What was he implying? I told him in a clipped voice, ‘almost six years now,’ but though he tried to pinpoint why I had begun it, as much as when, I resisted giving him that private piece of information.

Arthur had every faith in my abilities. Darling Arthur. The hotel room that June afternoon was dark as a crypt and hot as an inferno. Little wonder I sat sweating at the table, clad head-to-toe in my favourite black silk. Even my eyes seemed to leak moisture. In the absence of a breeze, I longed for a fan; the drawn curtains had shut out the sea-air, along with the sunlight. The locked windows blurred the children’s shouts coming up from the beach or the boardwalk and I strained to hear little Billie and her brothers playing outside. However, some light jazz music did filter through from another room along the hotel corridor.  

I had an urge to hum along to it, even as my girdle was nipping my sides, and my black skirt stuck to my damp stockings. And so, I closed my eyes. My ‘props’, as I called them, were all on display and causing me no small discomfort: a long necklace made of onyx gemstones pooled in my lap and created a wet spot of sweat there; the black silk turban I always fashioned from a silk scarf and decorated with pearls caused droplets to gather on my forehead. It was the price I paid for appearing in my own little theatre; the price I paid for my conceit, for believing I could bend the great Escapologist to the truth of the afterlife.  

Arthur and Mr Houdini sat on either side of me. The latter twitched; I felt the tremors from his fingers on the table top.

It was nearly time.   

How strong the little man’s resistance was, as he fidgeted in his rumpled, stained, too-large white suit. He didn’t care for my ‘special skills’, as he had referred to them the day before, but Arthur would not, could not, let his friend be forever trapped in a world of scepticism. I would release him from that world, so that he would not fear death.   

He will see that there is no such thing as death.

Mr Houdini made a living by cheating death, of course: banish death, and you banished so much more that ordinary people depended upon for life, which was always the problem we faced when dealing with a sceptical mind. If there was no death to cheat, what would the great magician do with himself every day? Bess, his wife, had said that they intended to ‘retire to the country’, which had made them both laugh, for they knew they would do no such thing.

He was the cheater of death, who thought to show that we were the cheats.  

I coughed a little, my damp eyelids still closed, and, aware of wet on my upper lip, wiped it with my fingertips. Mr Houdini – the magician, the trickster – began tapping his foot. Suddenly, a breeze came from somewhere; not from outside, that was impossible. But I felt it, just for a second.

‘Dear Lord,’ I began, mezzo-soprano, my chin raised as if to begin an aria. It was my favourite moment, before I would seize my other props, the pencil and the paper. My right hand would fly out, before a gasp, and a fond sort of laugh, the kind one makes when meeting an old friend, would escape me. I kept time with those gasps with my free hand, beating on the table top.

Or so Arthur would tell me; I was never fully aware of myself in the moment of a performance, too captured by whatever spirit had come through. Only when the gasping stopped and my hands rested, did my eyes open and the words begin to flow. Back and forth over sheets of paper, the gripped pencil would scribble as fast as Arthur could pass the paper to me. I barely saw what I wrote; my eyelids fluttered and my breath came fast.

Oh my darling at last I’m through I want to talk to my boy my beloved boy

‘Ma!’ said Mr Houdini. ‘Well, what – ‘  

But Arthur shushed him as I scribbled on page after page.  

Never had a mother such a son tell him not to grieve soon he’ll get all the evidence he is so anxious for – I am preparing a sweet home for him which one day in God’s time he will come to – I am so happy in this life my only shadow has been that my beloved one hasn’t known how often I have been with him all the while

‘Can my mother – know what I’m thinking?’ Mr Houdini asked.

I always read my beloved son’s mind his dear mind there is so much I want to say to him but I am almost overwhelmed thank you friend for all you have done this day thank you too Sir Arthur for what you are doing for us over here

‘Incredible,’ the little man muttered. ‘Incredible.’

How exhausting it was, though, in the heat of that June afternoon. Mrs Weiss’s need to reach her son was an endless grappling through the dark towards him, and with only me to guide her. When I finally stopped writing, her son begged, do not stop.  

‘She is happy now, you can see it,’ I murmured, waving my hand over the reams of paper; fifteen sheets in all. But my throat was on fire and my hand ached. I wanted desperately to remove the turban, loosen my girdle and lie down. Arthur got up from the table and syphoned a glass of soda water from the seltzer bottle on the dresser, which he brought over to me.    

He had look of such gratitude on his face. I had saved his friend. Generous Arthur. My own gratitude was for his support of me. Now there would be no more arguments; no more mockery of his beliefs by that little man. The Great Illusionist was no more; he had been shown the truth.  

‘I really must rest now, Arthur,’ I said.

‘Of course, my dear,’ he replied, proffering his arm as I rose, unsteadily. These occasions took almost everything from me; Arthur asked his friend to open the window as I seemed about to faint. The sudden sunlight was almost blinding; the air itself like an electric shock. But I was able to straighten up, and loosen my hold of Arthur’s arm.

Mr Houdini’s bloodless face indicated how much the communications from his mother had taken out of him, too. He remained seated at the table, staring at the pile of papers. I would have felt pity for the sadness of his expression, but for his request.   

‘Can – anyone do this?’ he said. ‘Forgive me, Lady Doyle – ’ for I could not help but mutter a protest at his easy appropriation of my talent – ‘Forgive me, but I – I would like to try this for myself – see if the spirit would speak through me, too – ’

Arthur was too delighted, though, to heed any warning I might utter. He passed the little man a sheet of paper, setting it in front of him with enthusiasm. ‘Now, you must do just as Jean does,’ he said. ‘Say a prayer; empty your mind. Write what first moves you to do so. Jean – come, stand by him if you are able. Let the spirit be near to him.’

I wobbled behind Mr Houdini, and was forced to hold on to the back of his chair. My breathing came heavily; the spirit was not done with me after all. The smell of pomade drifted up from the top of Mr Houdini’s head, making me nauseous.

He murmured a few words, then took up the pencil. His hand wavered a little; a spasm in my midriff pitched me forward, just a little, as he wrote a single word on the paper.

Powell.   

Arthur, leaning over, slapped the table top, hard, and his sudden action sent my fist to my chest. ‘Ellis Powell,’ he said. ‘Is – was – a great friend of mine – a great Spiritualist. He passed through – days ago, only days. Now he has come through to you, knowing that I am close by.’

Mr Houdini looked down at his fingers, still clasping the pencil, as though they did not belong to his hand. I nodded at Arthur, but, truthfully, I no longer cared what his friend believed or did not believe. ‘You are a medium,’ Arthur insisted, which irritated both me and the little man, for different reasons. ‘I told you yesterday that you were no magician but a true communer with spirits – ’

Mr Houdini got to his feet then, and I stepped back to let him pass. He muttered something about a friend of his of that same name in Texas, but that was all. ‘Thank you, Lady Doyle,’ he said, picking up his straw hat, but without looking in my direction. I said nothing in reply; after he had departed, I said to Arthur, ‘will you go down to Billie and the boys, dearest? I really must rest.’

I wanted a few moments to gather myself; Arthur’s exuberance could be both ballast and storm at times. Soon, I was alone in the hotel room, staring down at the single paper with Powell written on it in Mr Houdini’s little man’s script. He had taken with him the pages I had written. Arthur’s laughter and the children’s squeals drifted upwards, and I loosened my skirts and my girdle, and lay down on the bed.    

We met Mr Houdini and Bess a few days later at a celebration party they were hosting for their wedding anniversary. Word had gone round that I had communicated with Mrs Weisz; he did not seem to care for that, and I assured him that we had not been the ones to gossip. It was several months later, while we were spending time at the cottage in Bignell Wood, my favourite place, that he wrote to Arthur.

His letter arrived there on Armistice Day, but my thoughts were only of my brother, Malcolm, who had been killed at the Battle of Mons at the start of the war. Arthur put the letter aside; a few days later, I conducted a séance, hoping Malcolm would come through, but it was ‘The Mam’ who spoke to us instead.  

Oh, Arthur, my boy, my own beloved son, this world is so wonderful. All that you are telling the people about this life is true, true.  

 Arthur was determined that we should spend Christmas in Switzerland, and so we consulted with the spirits about the best accommodation for ourselves and the children. The day before we were to depart, I was in his study, looking for a key to one of the trunks we used for the children’s clothes. Arthur was in the garden with Ezra, who was raking up dead leaves.

The letter was not hidden away, nor was it left out. My hand moved towards it as it sat in the rack on his desk, and so I read what the little man had written to my husband.   

‘I hold both Lady Doyle and yourself in the highest esteem. I was heartily in accord and sympathy at the séance, but the letter was written entirely in English, and my sainted mother could not read, write, or speak the language. I did not care to discuss it at the time, because my emotions kept me quiet until time passed and I could give it the proper deduction.’

I returned the letter to the letter rack and continued looking for the key to the children’s trunk. But it eluded me, and so I packed the children’s clothes along with ours.  

There was no need to make a fuss about it.

*  

9

Author biography:

I am the author of four novels, the most recent Love and Other Poisons published by Wildfire, and a work of non-fiction, Between the Sheets: The Literary Liaisons of Nine 20th Century Women Writers.