# Houdini: The Phone Call from the Coffin (Part 3)

An episode of [Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1484511465), 28 Mar 2025, 41 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdrl.fm/18db03/tracking.swap.fm/track/SxlTEPDY7xDg35RXkASs/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/c0ae8c6e-22f0-4e9b-ac1c-ae390037ac53/450fd1dc-5d61-4e99-9ca5-b2ac00eb0e89/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=7f5a4714-6b10-4ccf-a424-ae390037ac70

Fearing for his life, Harry Houdini leaves secret codes with his loved ones, promising to use them in any post-mortem messaging. In 1926, Houdini's death shocks the world, but the news that follows is even more astounding. A report of the impossible: contact has been made. For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com. Get ad-free episodes, plus an exclusive monthly bonus episode, to Cautionary Tales by subscribing to Pushkin+ on Apple Podcasts or Pushkin.fm. Pushkin+ subscribers can access ad-free episodes, full audiobooks exclusive binges, and bonus content for all Pushkin shows. Subscribe on Apple: apple.co/pushkin Subscribe on Pushkin: pushkin.fm/plus See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:15] Speaker 1: Pushkin. This is the final episode of a three part series.
[0:24] Speaker 1: You can enjoy it on a standalone basis, but if
[0:27] Speaker 1: you've not heard episodes one and two, you might prefer
[0:29] Speaker 1: to listen to them first. Rose Mackenberg picked up her
[0:36] Speaker 1: morning newspaper, saw the headline on the front page, and
[0:40] Speaker 1: choked on her coffee.
[0:43] Speaker 2: She was genuinely staggered.
[0:45] Speaker 1: She later wrote, if this was true, it.
[0:48] Speaker 3: Was the story of the century, an actual, factual miracle.
[0:54] Speaker 1: The headline Houdini sends from grave, the word he promised wife.
[1:02] Speaker 1: The date was January the ninth, nineteen twenty nine. Two
[1:07] Speaker 1: in a bit years had passed since the death of
[1:10] Speaker 1: Harry Houdini at the age of just fifty two. Rose
[1:15] Speaker 1: Mackenberg had worked for Houdini as his chief investigator of
[1:19] Speaker 1: fraudulent mediums, as Houdini transformed himself from a magician and
[1:25] Speaker 1: escape artist into a crusader for critical thinking about supernatural ideas,
[1:32] Speaker 1: in particular the fast growing religion of spiritualism, with its
[1:36] Speaker 1: claim to enable communication between the living and the dead.
[1:42] Speaker 1: Rose read the article in her newspaper. Houdini and his
[1:47] Speaker 1: wife Bess had a secret code, It said, the previous dad,
[1:52] Speaker 1: the medium arthur Ford had visited Bess and delivered her
[1:57] Speaker 1: a message in the Secret Code. Having thus established his identity,
[2:03] Speaker 1: Harry went.
[2:04] Speaker 4: On, spare no time or money to undo my attitude
[2:09] Speaker 4: of doubt. While on earth, place the truth before all
[2:13] Speaker 4: those who have lost the faith. Tell the world there
[2:16] Speaker 4: is no death. Tell the world that Harry Houdini lives
[2:21] Speaker 4: and will prove it a thousand times.
[2:26] Speaker 1: Hmm. That sounded suspiciously like just what a spiritualist minister
[2:32] Speaker 1: would want the ghost of Harry Houdini to say. But
[2:36] Speaker 1: what about that secret code? The newspaper carried a statement
[2:40] Speaker 1: by Bess.
[2:42] Speaker 3: I wish to declare that the message is a correct
[2:46] Speaker 3: message pre arranged between mister Houdini and myself. Beatrice Houdini.
[2:53] Speaker 1: Rose Mackenberg didn't dismiss the idea that there was life
[2:57] Speaker 1: after death. She was smart, skeptical, and open minded. That's
[3:02] Speaker 1: why Houdini trusted her. As Rose said, he wanted to believe,
[3:08] Speaker 1: he thought, but one.
[3:09] Speaker 2: Thing truth.
[3:12] Speaker 1: Still, though surely not.
[3:17] Speaker 5: For a flash.
[3:17] Speaker 3: Even my composure was shaken, and then my memory began
[3:22] Speaker 3: to function.
[3:25] Speaker 1: I'm Tim Harford, and you're listening to cautionary tales. In
[3:52] Speaker 1: the summer of nineteen twenty six, Harry Houdini should have
[3:57] Speaker 1: been having arrest. Had just been to Washington, d C.
[4:01] Speaker 1: Giving evidence at raucous congressional hearings into a bill that
[4:06] Speaker 1: proposed to ban mediums. In autumn, he'd be embarking on
[4:11] Speaker 1: a grueling five month coast to coast tour from Boston
[4:16] Speaker 1: to Providence, Albany, Schenectady, Montreal, Detroit. Houdini was getting older,
[4:23] Speaker 1: but he couldn't stop touring. He needed the money. It's
[4:28] Speaker 1: not that he had expensive tastes in things like food
[4:32] Speaker 1: or clothes. Growing up in poverty had left him with
[4:35] Speaker 1: frugal habits, so much so Bess had to periodically retire
[4:40] Speaker 1: his tatteoust underwear and slip new ones into the drawer
[4:44] Speaker 1: without telling him. The drain on his resources was what
[4:49] Speaker 1: he saw as his sacred duty, his crusade for critical thinking.
[4:56] Speaker 1: He was spending tens of thousands of dollars a year
[5:00] Speaker 1: millions in today's money, on his team of psychic investigators
[5:05] Speaker 1: headed by Rose Mackenberg, and lawyers to fight off an
[5:10] Speaker 1: endless stream of lawsuits as the fraudulent mediums he exposed
[5:15] Speaker 1: sued him for slander. Sure he'd win the lawsuits. They
[5:20] Speaker 1: were stressful and expensive, nonetheless, but the plan for arrest
[5:25] Speaker 1: hit a snag when Houdini heard about the latest stage
[5:29] Speaker 1: sensation in New York, a self styled Egyptian fekia whose
[5:36] Speaker 1: showpiece was to survive being sealed in an air tight casket. This,
[5:43] Speaker 1: claimed the Fekia, was due to his unique ability to
[5:46] Speaker 1: enter into a special state he called cataleptic anesthesia. Houdini
[5:53] Speaker 1: was irked. This was uncomfortably close to his wheelhouse, being
[5:58] Speaker 1: confined in a tight space and getting out alive and
[6:02] Speaker 1: cataleptic anesthesia was mumbo jumbo. Anyone could train themselves to
[6:07] Speaker 1: survive on little air for a while if they were
[6:09] Speaker 1: fit enough and disciplined enough to take short, calm, shallow breaths.
[6:15] Speaker 1: Hoodini issued a challenge, however long this fekir survives in
[6:20] Speaker 1: a sealed coffin, I'll do it for longer. The fakir
[6:26] Speaker 1: called the city's media to a swimming pool to lay
[6:29] Speaker 1: down his marker. He had himself soldered in a zinc coffin,
[6:34] Speaker 1: which was submerged in the pool by six men standing
[6:38] Speaker 1: on it. After fifty nine minutes, they cut open the coffin.
[6:45] Speaker 1: He was alive, Houdini called the Press to another swimming
[6:50] Speaker 1: pool and had himself soldered into a bronze coffin that
[6:53] Speaker 1: had had specially made A telephone wire poking through the
[6:58] Speaker 1: lid would let him call for help if he needed it.
[7:04] Speaker 1: A half hour passed, an hour and a quarter. It
[7:11] Speaker 1: was hot in this swimming pool. The temperature inside the
[7:15] Speaker 1: coffin neared one hundred degrees. If I'd die, Podini had
[7:20] Speaker 1: said beforehand to the assembled Press.
[7:23] Speaker 5: It will be the will of God and my own foolishness.
[7:29] Speaker 1: Hoodini wasn't as fit as he used to be. He'd
[7:33] Speaker 1: put on twenty pounds since his younger days. Yes, he'd
[7:37] Speaker 1: just put himself through a vigorous workout regime to get
[7:40] Speaker 1: back in shape. But had he done enough. After an
[7:46] Speaker 1: hour and twenty eight minutes, Hoodini started to feel himself
[7:51] Speaker 1: drifting off.
[7:55] Speaker 5: Bring me up in two minutes, he.
[7:58] Speaker 1: Breathed into the phone line. They did. The soul That
[8:04] Speaker 1: coffin lid was peeled back like a sardine can reveal
[8:09] Speaker 1: Houdini caked in sweat, deathly white, but alive, pulse racing.
[8:18] Speaker 1: He hadn't just beaten the Fekiir's record. He had obliterated it.
[8:25] Speaker 1: Hoodini might have been sanguine about the prospect of accidentally
[8:29] Speaker 1: dying in one of his own stunts, but another kind
[8:32] Speaker 1: of threat to his life made him increasingly paranoid.
[8:37] Speaker 5: They're going to kill me.
[8:40] Speaker 1: Houdini had taken to calling a friend at all hours
[8:44] Speaker 1: of the day and night.
[8:45] Speaker 6: Don't laugh every night.
[8:48] Speaker 2: They're holding seances and praying for my death.
[8:52] Speaker 1: Spiritualist mediums did keep predicting Whodini's imminent demise. That's got
[8:58] Speaker 1: to be unsettling. When does a prediction become a veiled threat?
[9:04] Speaker 1: And those lawsuits were mounting up. No sooner had Houdini
[9:08] Speaker 1: embarked on his big autumn tour than he had to
[9:12] Speaker 1: travel back overnight to New York for an urgent meeting
[9:16] Speaker 1: with his lawyer, and then another overnight train to Albany
[9:20] Speaker 1: to get straight back on stage. And in Albany disaster,
[9:28] Speaker 1: Houdini was performing his trademark Chinese water torture escape. His
[9:34] Speaker 1: feet were clamped in wooden stocks and he was hoisted
[9:37] Speaker 1: upside down then lowered into a cabinet filled with water.
[9:42] Speaker 1: But as he dangled in the air, the stocks cracked
[9:47] Speaker 1: and fractured. Houdini's ankle. He finished the show on one
[9:51] Speaker 1: leg and hobbled through the rest of his stint in Albany,
[9:56] Speaker 1: Schenectady and on to Montreal. Nearing the end of his run.
[10:03] Speaker 1: In Montreal, Houdini was in his dressing room, reclining on
[10:07] Speaker 1: a couch to rest his healing ankle and amiably chatting
[10:11] Speaker 1: to two young students, an artist and his friend. The
[10:15] Speaker 1: artist was sketching Houdini's portrait. A third student came into
[10:20] Speaker 1: the room, not known to the first two. He'd borrowed
[10:23] Speaker 1: a book from Houdini, and he'd come to give it back.
[10:27] Speaker 1: The new arrival seemed to be annoyingly lacking in social awareness.
[10:32] Speaker 1: He dominated the conversation, bombarding Houdini with question after unrelated question.
[10:38] Speaker 4: Is it true, mister Houdini, that you can resist the
[10:41] Speaker 4: hardest blows struck to the abdomen?
[10:43] Speaker 1: Houdini tactfully tried to deflect. Fill my muscles, ha, they
[10:49] Speaker 1: are like iron. The three students took turns to feel
[10:53] Speaker 1: Houdini's arms. They were indeed like iron.
[10:58] Speaker 4: But would you mind if I delivered a few blows
[11:01] Speaker 4: to your abdomen, mister Houdini.
[11:04] Speaker 1: Houdini clearly wasn't in the mood to be hit in
[11:07] Speaker 1: the abdomen, but the student wasn't getting it, and Houdini's
[11:12] Speaker 1: ego was a powerful thing, all right, he said. He
[11:17] Speaker 1: began to shift on the couch so he could stand
[11:20] Speaker 1: up and brace himself, but the student didn't wait. He
[11:23] Speaker 1: stood over the couch, pummeling Houdini in the stomach. Blow
[11:27] Speaker 1: after crunching blow, the artist's friend leaped up. What are
[11:31] Speaker 1: you doing? Are you crazy? Houdini raised a hand.
[11:36] Speaker 3: That will do.
[11:39] Speaker 1: The artist finished his portrait and presented it to Houdini.
[11:44] Speaker 5: You make me look a little tired in this picture.
[11:49] Speaker 5: The truth is I don't feel so well.
[11:58] Speaker 1: By nighttime, Houdini was complaining of crippling pains in his stomach,
[12:03] Speaker 1: but he had the final shows in Montreal to get through,
[12:07] Speaker 1: and then an overnight train to try, then straight on
[12:10] Speaker 1: stage for another show in Detroit. He can barely stand,
[12:17] Speaker 1: touching his side two weak to complete a simple magic
[12:21] Speaker 1: trick of pulling a silk streamer from a bowl. When
[12:24] Speaker 1: the curtain falls, Houdini collapses. He's running a fever of
[12:30] Speaker 1: one hundred and four by the time he gets to
[12:33] Speaker 1: hospital and the surgeon opens him up an infection that
[12:37] Speaker 1: began in his appendix has spread to the lining of
[12:41] Speaker 1: his stomach. Hoodini's insides are a mass of pass in
[12:48] Speaker 1: a world before antibiotics, this isn't survivable. Hoodini holds on
[12:57] Speaker 1: for a few more days.
[12:59] Speaker 5: I suppose we'll get over this waveiness in no time
[13:05] Speaker 5: until at last, Yes, I'm all through Friday.
[13:14] Speaker 1: They're going to kill me, Houdini had said, had he
[13:17] Speaker 1: been right to fear that his spiritualist enemies had been
[13:22] Speaker 1: not just predicting his death but plotting it. Maybe, but
[13:28] Speaker 1: punching someone in the stomach is hardly a reliable way
[13:31] Speaker 1: to kill them. Even in hindsight. We don't know if
[13:35] Speaker 1: those punches made any difference, or if Houdini was already
[13:39] Speaker 1: suffering from a burst appendix. It seems more likely that
[13:44] Speaker 1: what's true of Houdini's death is true perhaps of death
[13:48] Speaker 1: more generally. There is no deeper narrative that makes sense
[13:53] Speaker 1: of it all, much as we'd love to believe there is.
[13:56] Speaker 1: It's all just chance and happenstance. Harry Houdini died on
[14:03] Speaker 1: the thirty first of October nineteen twenty six. He was
[14:07] Speaker 1: buried in the Bronze coffin it had made for his
[14:10] Speaker 1: swimming pool stunt. But from that coffin would he discover
[14:17] Speaker 1: a telephone line to the living Cautionary tales will be
[14:22] Speaker 1: back after the break. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the great
[14:44] Speaker 1: author and famous spiritualist, had a curious kind of friendship
[14:48] Speaker 1: with Harry Houdini. They kept up a cordial private correspondence
[14:53] Speaker 1: for some time after they started bitterly ripping into each
[14:57] Speaker 1: other in public. The two men fascinated each other. Houdini
[15:02] Speaker 1: was intrigued by how someone as obviously smart as Sir
[15:06] Speaker 1: Arthur could be so credulous. He believed in fairies and
[15:10] Speaker 1: goblins for goodness sake. As for Sir Arthur, he was
[15:14] Speaker 1: convinced that Houdini himself had supernatural powers. How else could
[15:21] Speaker 1: he manage his astonishing tricks and escapes. When he heard
[15:27] Speaker 1: of Houdini's death, Conan Doyle put out a statement, his.
[15:32] Speaker 2: Death is a great shock and a deep mystery to me.
[15:36] Speaker 2: I greatly admired him and cannot understand how the end
[15:40] Speaker 2: came for one so youthful.
[15:43] Speaker 1: In private, though Conan Doyle wasn't shocked at all, his.
[15:48] Speaker 2: Death was most certainly decreed from the other side.
[15:53] Speaker 1: After all, thought Sir Arthur. If Houdini had been hiding
[15:58] Speaker 1: the help he got from the spirit world, while at
[16:00] Speaker 1: the same time cruelly mocking the mediums who brought messages
[16:05] Speaker 1: from the spirit world, well it stands to reason that
[16:09] Speaker 1: the spirits would be incensed. Still, Conan Oyle spied an opportunity.
[16:16] Speaker 1: He'd always hoped to persuade Houdini to admit that he
[16:20] Speaker 1: was in fact a powerful spirit medium himself. Perhaps he'd
[16:25] Speaker 1: have better luck in recruiting Houdini to the cause now
[16:29] Speaker 1: that Houdini was dead. He began writing letters to Houdini's widow, Bess.
[16:36] Speaker 2: I am sorry that shadows grew up between.
[16:39] Speaker 3: Us, my dear Sir Arthur. Bess replied, Houdini would have
[16:44] Speaker 3: been the happiest man in the world had he been
[16:46] Speaker 3: able to agree with your views.
[16:49] Speaker 1: Conan Oyle turned on the flattery.
[16:52] Speaker 2: Any man who wins the love and respect of a
[16:55] Speaker 2: good woman must himself be a fine and honest man.
[17:00] Speaker 1: Bess began to open up.
[17:03] Speaker 3: If only you knew how my heart yearns to hear
[17:06] Speaker 3: the precious message from my beloved.
[17:10] Speaker 2: I am quite sure, Knowing has determined character that he
[17:14] Speaker 2: will get back to you.
[17:17] Speaker 1: Every day Bess sat and stared at Houdini's picture. If
[17:24] Speaker 1: only he could speak. She announced a prize of ten
[17:28] Speaker 1: thousand dollars for anyone who could send her a message
[17:32] Speaker 1: she'd recognize as having come from Houdini. That went about
[17:36] Speaker 1: as well as you'd expect. Every crank in the country
[17:40] Speaker 1: sent in messages purportedly from Houdini, saying things like God
[17:45] Speaker 1: is Truth, God is Love, and tussel with death was agony.
[17:52] Speaker 1: With every new message, Bess became more despondent.
[17:58] Speaker 3: Houdini was an unusually intelligent man. All these messages, without exception,
[18:04] Speaker 3: have been silly.
[18:08] Speaker 1: Sir Arthur kept writing. He might be a laughing stock
[18:12] Speaker 1: in some circles. He had just published a second edition
[18:15] Speaker 1: of his much ridiculed book, The Coming of the Fairies,
[18:19] Speaker 1: but the author of the Sherlock Holmes Mysteries still had
[18:22] Speaker 1: away with words in his speeches on spiritualism. He could
[18:27] Speaker 1: be very persuasive as a journalist. Once remarked Conan Doyle
[18:32] Speaker 1: could sell you a house with its roof missing by
[18:35] Speaker 1: means of an eloquent and sustained eulogy of the features
[18:40] Speaker 1: that remained. In one letter, Bess mentioned that a mirror
[18:44] Speaker 1: had fallen from the wall and smashed. Might that have
[18:48] Speaker 1: some kind of significance? So Arthur jumped on the suggestion.
[18:54] Speaker 2: I think the mirror incident shows every sign of being
[18:58] Speaker 2: a message. After all, such things don't happen elsewhere. No
[19:02] Speaker 2: mirror has ever broken in this house. Why should yours
[19:05] Speaker 2: do so?
[19:07] Speaker 1: So, arthur fear eye is that if the spirits were
[19:10] Speaker 1: cross with Houdini for denying his supernatural powers in his lifetime,
[19:15] Speaker 1: they may now be temporarily forbidding him to get clear
[19:18] Speaker 1: messages back as a kind of punishment. And if that
[19:22] Speaker 1: was happening, how might Houdini express his frustration fus by
[19:27] Speaker 1: smashing a mirror?
[19:29] Speaker 2: It is just the sort of energetic thing one could
[19:32] Speaker 2: expect from him.
[19:34] Speaker 1: So Arthur had trained the full force of his persuasive
[19:38] Speaker 1: powers onto the grief stricken Bess Houdini. What a coup
[19:43] Speaker 1: it would be if he could get her to publicly
[19:46] Speaker 1: state that Houdini had returned. But even Sir Arthur could
[19:51] Speaker 1: see he'd need something more than a smashed mirror to
[19:54] Speaker 1: convince the skeptics. As he wrote to a spiritualist friend.
[19:59] Speaker 7: I am in quite intimate touch with missus h who
[20:02] Speaker 7: was a splendid, loyal little woman. She seems quite to
[20:06] Speaker 7: accept our point of view, but does keen on getting
[20:09] Speaker 7: some evidence which she can give to the world.
[20:18] Speaker 1: Just afternoon on January eighth, nineteen twenty nine, the charming
[20:24] Speaker 1: young medium arthur Ford arrived at Bess Houdini's house. Some
[20:30] Speaker 1: of arthur Ford's followers came with him. Some of Bess's
[20:33] Speaker 1: friends were there, and two journalists. Bess was lying on
[20:39] Speaker 1: a sofa, covered in a blanket with a bandaged head
[20:43] Speaker 1: she'd fallen over at a New Year's party. Arthur Ford
[20:47] Speaker 1: sat down, wrapped a silk blindfold around his eyes, and
[20:52] Speaker 1: began to shake.
[20:55] Speaker 2: Hoodini is here. He tells me to say hello, best sweetheart.
[21:02] Speaker 2: He wants me to give you these words Rosa bel answer, Tell, pray, answer,
[21:08] Speaker 2: look book, tell, answer, answer tell. He wants you to
[21:14] Speaker 2: tell him whether they are right or not.
[21:17] Speaker 3: Yes, they are.
[21:20] Speaker 2: He tells you to take off your wedding ring and
[21:22] Speaker 2: tell them what rosa bell means.
[21:25] Speaker 1: Bess removed her wedding ring. Inside was inscribed the word Rosabel.
[21:33] Speaker 1: It was their song, she explained, way back when they
[21:38] Speaker 1: first met.
[21:41] Speaker 3: Rouse see sweet Rosea Bell. I love her more than
[21:48] Speaker 3: I can tell.
[21:51] Speaker 1: Than the secret code answer tell, pray answer look tell
[21:58] Speaker 1: answer answer, Tell what was that about? Back when Bess
[22:06] Speaker 1: and Houdini had been performing mind reading the circus, They'd
[22:10] Speaker 1: devised a way to communicate. They picked out some words
[22:14] Speaker 1: that wouldn't look incongruous in the context of their act,
[22:18] Speaker 1: and made each correspond to a number. Answer was two,
[22:23] Speaker 1: tell was five, and so on. Bess might, for example,
[22:30] Speaker 1: ask someone in the audience to guess a number and
[22:32] Speaker 1: write it down for her. Then Bess would call out
[22:36] Speaker 1: to Houdini something like.
[22:39] Speaker 3: Pray, tell what the answer is? Speak quickly.
[22:42] Speaker 1: Now Houdini would note the order of the code words
[22:46] Speaker 1: and ignore the other words in the sentence, convert them
[22:49] Speaker 1: back into numbers, and he'd know what the audience member
[22:52] Speaker 1: had written down. Depending on the context, those numbers could
[22:56] Speaker 1: be translated into letters too, according to their place in
[23:00] Speaker 1: the alphabet. Answer two the letter B tell five E
[23:08] Speaker 1: spell it out, and the words Arthur Ford had delivered
[23:12] Speaker 1: spelled B E L I E V E believe.
[23:24] Speaker 4: Rosa bell believe is that the right message.
[23:29] Speaker 1: Bess nodded tearfully, and Ford continued in triumph.
[23:36] Speaker 2: He says, tell the world that Harry Houdini lives and
[23:40] Speaker 2: will prove it a thousand times.
[23:52] Speaker 1: When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle read the news, he was
[23:56] Speaker 1: exultant all at once. Whodini had become.
[24:01] Speaker 2: The classical case of after death return.
[24:06] Speaker 1: Doyle got to work drafting a lengthy article.
[24:10] Speaker 2: If these loving hands can meet through the veil, then
[24:14] Speaker 2: hours also can do so.
[24:17] Speaker 1: When Rose Mackenberg read the news for a flash, her
[24:21] Speaker 1: composure was shaken. Then, as she recalled, my memory began
[24:28] Speaker 1: to function. Rose bel but that was hardly a secret.
[24:35] Speaker 1: Anyone who knew the Houdinis knew the significance of roose belt.
[24:40] Speaker 1: And as for those numbered code words, Rose thought, had
[24:43] Speaker 1: she read them somewhere since Houdini's death. She went to
[24:48] Speaker 1: her bookshelf and took down a biography of Houdini published
[24:52] Speaker 1: the previous year. Sure enough, tucked away on page one
[24:56] Speaker 1: hundred and five, there it was Pray one, answer two.
[25:05] Speaker 1: Rose closed the book. She could only get that the
[25:09] Speaker 1: details of how Ford had pulled off his trick. But
[25:13] Speaker 1: if the so called secret code was not so secret
[25:16] Speaker 1: after all, it clearly was a trick that was enough
[25:21] Speaker 1: to restore Rose's composure. As it happened, those details were surprising.
[25:27] Speaker 1: They were set out in an article on the front
[25:30] Speaker 1: page of the next morning's newspaper under an even bigger headline,
[25:35] Speaker 1: who DNI message a big HOPX cautionary tales will be
[25:42] Speaker 1: back in a moment? Who DENI message a big hoax?
[25:58] Speaker 1: The article was written by a journalist called Raya Howray.
[26:02] Speaker 1: She'd been at Bessie's house for the seance. She'd also
[26:06] Speaker 1: been at Bessie's house a couple of days before, when
[26:09] Speaker 1: she reported she had found Bess in a state of
[26:13] Speaker 1: semi delirium, intermittently blacking out. Under the constant care of physicians.
[26:19] Speaker 1: Bess was suffering from flu. It seemed she was also
[26:24] Speaker 1: still recovering from that bang to the head of the
[26:27] Speaker 1: New Year's party. But there was more to the story.
[26:31] Speaker 1: Bess had fallen because she was drunk. She'd been drinking
[26:34] Speaker 1: a lot lately and taking drugs and partying with younger men.
[26:40] Speaker 1: One of those younger men was none other than the dashing,
[26:45] Speaker 1: charming medium Arthur Ford. The journalist Raya Howrey had been
[26:53] Speaker 1: at some of those parties with Bess and Arthur Ford.
[26:56] Speaker 1: She knew how well they knew each other. She may
[26:59] Speaker 1: not have known that Bessi's semi delirium wasn't just from
[27:03] Speaker 1: drink or flu. She'd also swallowed lots of sleeping pills.
[27:09] Speaker 1: She'd left a note for Harry's lawyer, I am.
[27:12] Speaker 3: So ill, I want to go to Harry.
[27:19] Speaker 1: The semi delirious Bess told Raya all about the seance
[27:24] Speaker 1: she and Arthur Ford had planned. Arthur would give her
[27:28] Speaker 1: the coded message, she'd take off her wedding ring, explain
[27:33] Speaker 1: roose belt, and so on. Raya took careful notes. She
[27:39] Speaker 1: realized that Bess planning a seance wasn't much of a story,
[27:44] Speaker 1: but she could get two days of front page headlines
[27:47] Speaker 1: if she first reported on the seance, then reported on
[27:52] Speaker 1: the hoax. On the day after the seance, Raya invited
[28:01] Speaker 1: Arthur Ford to her house. Ford was delighted with the
[28:05] Speaker 1: newspaper coverage. Houdini's return was on all the front pages.
[28:10] Speaker 1: Raya led Ford into a discussion of the party where
[28:14] Speaker 1: she'd first met Ford and Bess didn't he remember? Oh? Yes,
[28:20] Speaker 1: Ford happily reminisced. Then Raya told Ford how she was
[28:26] Speaker 1: going to write another story about how Bess had told
[28:29] Speaker 1: her exactly how the seance would unfold. She showed him
[28:33] Speaker 1: the notes she'd taken. She had also shown those notes
[28:37] Speaker 1: to her editor before the seance. Ford was horrified.
[28:43] Speaker 2: But you must play ball, really, I would be glad
[28:47] Speaker 2: to make financial compensation.
[28:51] Speaker 1: The editor was hiding in the next room listening to everything.
[28:59] Speaker 1: When the hoax story was published, Arthur Ford insisted he
[29:03] Speaker 1: had been the victim of an impersonation attempt. It didn't
[29:07] Speaker 1: seem to harm his career as a medium. Houdini's lawyer
[29:12] Speaker 1: hand wrote a letter to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, handwritten
[29:16] Speaker 1: because this was in strictest confidence. He didn't even want
[29:20] Speaker 1: his secretary to see the contents. He thought Sir Arthur
[29:24] Speaker 1: should know just how desperate Bessie's mental decline had become
[29:29] Speaker 1: before that seance. Sir Arthur judiciously inserted one word into
[29:34] Speaker 1: his long article about Whodini's return. Apparently, then he tacked
[29:42] Speaker 1: a couple of sentences on to the end.
[29:45] Speaker 2: It is true that in the last resort we are
[29:48] Speaker 2: dependent upon the veracity and honesty of missus Houdini. But I,
[29:52] Speaker 2: for one, am not cynical enough to question it.
[29:57] Speaker 1: Perhaps it wasn't just grief about Harry's death that caused
[30:01] Speaker 1: bess to play along, but also what Bess had found
[30:06] Speaker 1: among Harry's belongings after his death, letters from other women
[30:13] Speaker 1: women she knew, women who privately referred to Harry as
[30:18] Speaker 1: my magic man or magic lover. Bess invited each of
[30:24] Speaker 1: them to lunch, but when they rang the doorbell, it
[30:27] Speaker 1: was Bessi's maid who answered, Missus Houdini is indisposed. She
[30:33] Speaker 1: asked me to give you this handing over a bundle
[30:36] Speaker 1: of their correspondence. In their book The Secret Life of Houdini,
[30:44] Speaker 1: the authors William Callush and Larry Slowman argue that Bess
[30:49] Speaker 1: was desperate for Harry to come back publicly to her.
[30:53] Speaker 1: She wanted to claim his spirit for the cause of
[30:56] Speaker 1: her marriage, just as Sir Arthur wanted to claim Houdini
[31:00] Speaker 1: for his religion. When the plan backfired, Bess spiraled further more,
[31:07] Speaker 1: drink ever younger Jiggilows, Pudini's brother, stepped in to safeguard
[31:14] Speaker 1: what was left of her inheritance. Bess checked herself into
[31:19] Speaker 1: a sanatorium. Hoodini had investigated enough mediums to know their
[31:27] Speaker 1: target market, the bereaved, made vulnerable by their grief. He
[31:33] Speaker 1: must have guessed that if he went first, Bess might
[31:37] Speaker 1: struggle to resist, so he didn't make a code just
[31:41] Speaker 1: with Bess. He made codes with everyone he felt he
[31:45] Speaker 1: could trust. One day, for instance, years before his death,
[31:49] Speaker 1: Hoodini stopped by the office of a friend and gave
[31:53] Speaker 1: him a present, a copy of Roget's Thesaurus. Inside was
[31:58] Speaker 1: a penciled note.
[32:01] Speaker 5: There is our cold.
[32:03] Speaker 1: Never breathed to a living soul. In his book A
[32:09] Speaker 1: Magician among the Spirits, Whodini said he had made pacts
[32:14] Speaker 1: like this with a dozen friends, every code unique. By
[32:19] Speaker 1: the time he died, it may have been more than twenty.
[32:23] Speaker 1: Whichever of us dies first, who Deni would explain, if
[32:27] Speaker 1: we find we still live and we can get through
[32:30] Speaker 1: with a message, include those words. When faced with an
[32:36] Speaker 1: intractable question, we can sometimes find an imaginative way to
[32:40] Speaker 1: generate evidence, And few questions are more intractable than do
[32:46] Speaker 1: we live on after death? The only evidence we'll ever
[32:50] Speaker 1: get is if someone comes back from the dead to
[32:54] Speaker 1: tell us. But how can we be sure if a
[32:57] Speaker 1: message from the other side is genuine? Wishful thinking is powerful,
[33:02] Speaker 1: Frauds can be convincing. Who Deni tried to make sure
[33:06] Speaker 1: that his audiences knew that. But what impresses me about Houdini.
[33:13] Speaker 1: Isn't just his efforts to debunk the lies. It's his
[33:17] Speaker 1: dedication to uncovering the truth. Houdini wanted to believe, but
[33:24] Speaker 1: he wasn't credulous like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He was
[33:28] Speaker 1: curious and systematic. He set up a one man experiment
[33:34] Speaker 1: that was not only ingenious but selfless, because he knew
[33:39] Speaker 1: he might not be the one to gather the evidence
[33:43] Speaker 1: if he died first, it would be his friends whould
[33:46] Speaker 1: have to piece that evidence together, either the various different
[33:51] Speaker 1: code words coming through which would strongly suggest that communication
[33:55] Speaker 1: with the dead was possible, or not, as the case
[33:59] Speaker 1: may be. Some of the friends Houdini made pacts with
[34:04] Speaker 1: died before him. One even called him to her deathbed
[34:09] Speaker 1: to reassure him that she remembered their code, a secret handshake.
[34:14] Speaker 1: She held out her hand and grasped Houdini's in the
[34:18] Speaker 1: grip they'd agreed, if I can get through, she said,
[34:23] Speaker 1: I'll have someone shake your hand like that. Nobody ever did.
[34:35] Speaker 1: After Houdini died, nobody apart from Bess ever said he
[34:41] Speaker 1: came through with the code they arranged. One of his
[34:44] Speaker 1: secret codes was with of course, Rose Mackenberg. Rose spent
[34:50] Speaker 1: three decades after Houdini's death investigating mediums. They gave her
[34:55] Speaker 1: messages from fifteen hundred fictitious dead husbands, but nobody mentioned
[35:03] Speaker 1: the words she had agreed with Houdini. If just one
[35:06] Speaker 1: of those mediums really did have a hotline to the
[35:10] Speaker 1: spirit world, you'd think that Houdini might have picked up.
[35:17] Speaker 1: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died in nineteen thirty. His widow,
[35:23] Speaker 1: Lady Doyle, invited a trusted medium to bring her husband back,
[35:29] Speaker 1: A good friend of Sir Arthur, a protege. Indeed, that
[35:33] Speaker 1: medium Arthur Ford. Lady Doyle was perfectly satisfied that Sir
[35:40] Speaker 1: Arthur had come through. Lady Doyle was less pleased when
[35:45] Speaker 1: some other medium published a book which claimed to contain
[35:49] Speaker 1: interviews with her dead husband, Arthur Conan Doyle's Book of
[35:56] Speaker 1: the Beyond. How dare they use his name like that?
[36:01] Speaker 1: It seemed that any old chancer could commandeer Sir Arthur's
[36:05] Speaker 1: spirit for their own purposes, and there was nothing Ladied
[36:09] Speaker 1: Oil could do about it. Who would have thought? Bess
[36:16] Speaker 1: eventually found a good man. His name was Edward Saint,
[36:22] Speaker 1: and he'd made his living in the circus, just like
[36:25] Speaker 1: Harry and Bess all those years ago. His act, he'd
[36:30] Speaker 1: challenged the audience to make him laugh, crack a joke,
[36:34] Speaker 1: and hid stays stony faced. If you got so much
[36:38] Speaker 1: as a smile out of him, you'd win a thousand dollars.
[36:43] Speaker 1: The money was never in danger. Saint had a partially
[36:47] Speaker 1: paralyzed face. Edward Saint revered Houdini and looked after Bess.
[36:56] Speaker 1: Years after her seance with Arthur Ford, she told an interviewer.
[37:01] Speaker 3: There was a time when I wanted intensely to hear
[37:04] Speaker 3: from Harry. I was ill, both physically and me, and
[37:10] Speaker 3: such was my eagerness that spiritualists were able to prey
[37:14] Speaker 3: upon my mind.
[37:16] Speaker 1: To her friends, she added a few more words about
[37:20] Speaker 1: Arthur Ford.
[37:22] Speaker 3: But he was such a handsome young man.
[37:26] Speaker 1: On the tenth anniversary of Houdini's death, the thirty first
[37:31] Speaker 1: of October nineteen thirty six, Edward Saint and Bess organized
[37:37] Speaker 1: a seance, the Final Seance, one last chance for Harry
[37:44] Speaker 1: to come through. Hundreds of guests gathered under the stars
[37:49] Speaker 1: on the rooftop of a Hollywood hotel. Millions more listened
[37:54] Speaker 1: to the live radio broadcast. A portrait of Houdini, lit
[37:59] Speaker 1: by a single red light bulb, looked down on a
[38:02] Speaker 1: table on which stood various devices of the medium's trade,
[38:08] Speaker 1: a trumpet, a bell, slates with chalk. Saint explained why
[38:16] Speaker 1: every facility has been provided tonight that might aid in
[38:20] Speaker 1: opening a pathway.
[38:21] Speaker 2: To the spirit world.
[38:23] Speaker 6: Are you here, Houdini, please manifest yourself in any way possible.
[38:29] Speaker 6: Let it take the table, spell out a code, Harry
[38:33] Speaker 6: ring the bell.
[38:40] Speaker 1: Everyone waited, nothing happened. Saint turned to Bess, missus Houdini,
[38:50] Speaker 1: have you reached a verdict?
[38:52] Speaker 3: Yes, I do not believe that Houdini can come back
[38:57] Speaker 3: to me or to anyone.
[39:01] Speaker 1: It is finished. Bess looked up at the portrait of
[39:08] Speaker 1: Harry Houdini.
[39:10] Speaker 3: Good Night, Harry.
[39:13] Speaker 1: She turned out the light. By Houdini Trilogy drew on
[39:38] Speaker 1: books such as Final Seance by Massimo Polydoro and The
[39:43] Speaker 1: Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini by Joe Posnanski. For
[39:48] Speaker 1: a fullest of our sources, see the show notes at
[39:51] Speaker 1: Timharford dot com. Cautionary Tales is written by me Tim
[39:58] Speaker 1: Harford with Andrew Wright, Alice Fines, and Ryan Dilly. It's
[40:02] Speaker 1: produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound design
[40:06] Speaker 1: and original music are the work of Pascal wi. Additional
[40:10] Speaker 1: sound design is by Carlos San Juan at Brain Audio.
[40:14] Speaker 1: Bend A Dafhaffrey edited the scripts. The show features the
[40:18] Speaker 1: voice talents of Melanie Guttridge, Stella Harford, Oliver Hembrough, Sarah Jupp,
[40:23] Speaker 1: massaam Monroe, Jamal Westman, and rufus Wright. The show also
[40:28] Speaker 1: wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg,
[40:31] Speaker 1: Greta Cohne, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody, Christina Sullivan,
[40:36] Speaker 1: Kira Posey, and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production
[40:41] Speaker 1: of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardoor Studios in London
[40:46] Speaker 1: by Tom Berry. If you like the show, please remember
[40:49] Speaker 1: to share, rate and review. It really makes a difference
[40:52] Speaker 1: to us and if you want to hear the show,
[40:54] Speaker 1: add free sign up to Pushkin Plus on the show
[40:57] Speaker 1: page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm, slash
[41:01] Speaker 1: plus

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