The Secret Life of Houdini

by William Kalush

  According to the newspaper accounts, on Houdini’s first visit, he agreed to be immediately locked in to test the cells. He was then stripped, searched, and thrown into Guiteau’s former cell, shocking a black man named Hamilton, who was currently residing there, awaiting hanging for murdering his wife. While Hamilton crouched in a corner in fear, Houdini escaped from the cell in less than two minutes.

  He was just warming up. Still nude, and out of sight of the various luminaries who had withdrawn to the warden’s office, Houdini ran to the next cell and opened it. Its occupant, a man named Chase, mistook Houdini for an escaping fellow prisoner. He followed the magician down the corridor to another cell door, which fell in seconds.

  “What are you doing here?” Houdini asked Clarence Howlett, the present occupant.

  “I’m a housebreaker,” Howlett said.

  “You’re a bad one, or you could get out of here,” Houdini replied. “Come along.”

  Houdini put Chase into Howlett’s cell and then brought Howlett and locked him into Chase’s cell. He repeated this a few times with other prisoners. Then he broke into the cell that contained his clothes, got dressed, and, precisely twenty-one minutes from being imprisoned, strolled into the warden’s office.

  “I let all of your prisoners out,” Houdini announced to the waiting visitors and press. Two guards jumped up and rushed out into the corridor.

  “But I locked them all in again,” he added.

  That same day Houdini received an impressive letter certifying his escape from Guiteau’s cell and his release of all the other prisoners on the ground floor. “There was positively no chance for any confederacy or collusion,” Warden Harris noted. The same day, Major Sylvester released his statement. “In order that defective means of restraint might be discovered in the holding of prisoners in this jurisdiction, and with a view to remedying any insecurity which might exist, Mr. Houdini, the expert man with locks, was permitted to examine a modern cell lock and attachment and then placed in an entirely different cell from the one he examined. He was searched and in a nude condition placed behind the bars and, as supposed, secured…In twenty-six minutes, he emerged from the cell and corridor fully attired.

  “The experiment was a valuable one in that the department has been instructed as to the adoption of further security, which will protect any lock from being opened or interfered with…

  “Mr. Houdini impressed his audience as a gentlemen and an artist who does not profess to do the impossible.”

  Once again, what was primarily a publicity stunt to sell tickets to Houdini’s shows had been couched as a civic-minded sociological experiment to aid the police departments to improve the efficacy of their confinement abilities. Sylvester was right, Houdini wasn’t professing to do the impossible. To escape from a jail cell, he would need either a key or an implement to defeat the lock. A nude search would seemingly preclude either of those possibilities, but Houdini had other tricks up his metaphorical sleeve. If the jails were using locks that employed a spring latch, they could be temporarily defeated by jamming a small wooden wedge into their socket. With the wedge in place, the lock would appear closed but in actuality would either fail to catch or catch so slightly that a good hard knock could jar it loose.

  Houdini had a variety of methods to avoid detection when he brought a key or a pick into a cell. Sometimes he would hide the key in his bushy hair. When his examination commenced, Houdini would suggest to the police officers to check his hair first. Unbeknownst to them, the key, which was treated with a dab of adhesive wax, would be palmed in his hand. As soon as his hair had been examined, Houdini would run his hand through his hair in what seemed like a reflex. What he was really doing was transferring the key to its hiding place and freeing up his hand for inspection. Other times, Houdini would affix the key with adhesive tape under his instep. This was risky, though, especially if the police would ask him to lift his foot for inspection.

  Houdini would often visit a jail a day or two in advance and case the place, sometimes bringing Bess along as a distraction while he would snoop. It’s believed that Houdini had the ability to photographically remember the details of a unique key, so that he could make a duplicate. He would also use clay to make an impression when he didn’t want to rely on his memory, a technique that was used years earlier by Wilkie’s Secret Service agents when they had to duplicate keys to make surreptitious entries. Early visits to the cell would give Houdini a chance to plant tools or picks in the cell itself, sometimes in a piece of soap, hanging from an invisible thread in the toilet, or affixed under a bench with gum. If he was escaping from a particularly odious or cold jail, where sanitary conditions were lacking, Houdini might sometimes request that after a thorough search, he be allowed to put his shoes back on. What the officials didn’t know was that the heels were hollowed out and swiveled open after pressing a hidden catch. This invention of Mokana, magic dealer Will Goldston’s brother, was and still is a formidable subterfuge.

  Perhaps the most ingenious device Houdini used to smuggle in his necessary tools were his own massive padlocks. He would convince his “captors” that the escape attempt would play better in the press if he was photographed and it was reported that he escaped from many locks and chains. Then Houdini would have affixed his own huge sturdy-looking padlocks in addition to the regulation police handcuffs and chains. What the police didn’t know was that Houdini’s padlocks were gimmicked; they were actually little toolboxes in the shape of large padlocks that held all of Houdini’s necessary hardware. He also owned an egg-shaped container that he could open to store small tools. This could be hidden in the back of his throat and was undetectable by all but the most thorough jailers.

  Barring these ploys, Houdini could also employ his hooked keys. He would solder a hook to the necessary key or pick and then station a police officer in front of his cell with his back to Houdini, so he could work without visual inspection. Before placing the officer, Houdini would fraternally slap the officer on the back, in the process affixing the key. Once inside the cell, it was child’s play to reach out and obtain the key without the enabler being aware.

  Then there was the last resort, used when he was convinced that the search would be grueling and comprehensive. Always the sportsman, Houdini would enter the cell and then extend his hand through the bars to shake hands with his captors and the press. The last man Houdini would shake hands with would be a friend who was wearing a finger ring with a spring clip that enabled him to palm a key or a pick. During this last emotional handshake, Houdini obtained the necessary tool.

  Although the fundamentals of Houdini’s escape methods have been published, the particular details are still shrouded in mystery. Much of what we now understand has come to us from Steranko, a living legend in several varied fields, including that of self-extrication. Steranko has done many of these escapes and is considered a grandmaster in the field. His writings on the subject, published in the 1960s, are still considered the reference standard.

  What was notable about these Washington jailbreaks was that the reports suggest that the attempts were made without Houdini’s usual procedure of examining both the locks and the cells beforehand. (There was a good reason for making those courtesy visits. Under the pretext of testing the lock with its key, Houdini was often able to make a wax impression of the key and duplicate it later.) Houdini’s ability to not only escape from Guiteau’s cell but also rearrange all the other prisoners on Murderer’s Row suggests that he had either the master key or a duplicate.

  Houdini posing prior to breaking out of the tombs in Boston. From the collection of Roger Dreyer

  The path of Houdini’s escape from Boston’s tombs.Conjuring Arts Research Center

  In Boston in March, Houdini made a similar splash. This time it took him only sixteen minutes to break out of the dreaded tombs. Houdini made his way back to his theater and then placed a call to William H. Pierce, the astonished superintendent of prisons, who asked him to return to the jail so tha
t the photographers could shoot him reenacting his leap over the jail fence.

  “You’re a great fellow,” the superintendent said, and grasped Houdini’s hand. “I expected that you would come here if you got out. The next time I’ll take your clothes out here with me, and then you’ll have to come into the office.”

  The acme of these staged, precisely choreographed Houdini–police chief encounters came the next time Houdini visited his old haunts in Chicago in November of 1906. “Under the personal direction, as they say in the show business, of Andy Rohan, lieutenant of detectives, Houdini, who makes a living getting out of handcuffs and locked rooms, mystified more than twenty detectives at detective headquarters last night,” The Chicago Examiner began its story. “Houdini, who has been doing this sort of thing for six years, was secured for one performance only at detective headquarters by Lieutenant Rohan…. Just what good it would do a detective to learn how to break out of jail Impresario Andy did not explain.”

  “‘You coppers and the press,’” said Andy, the manager, “‘will have to stand back and give the professor room enough to swallow a paper of pins.’”

  Houdini did the Needles to the delight of the crowd. Rohan wasn’t through playing MC.

  “‘The next trick will be the big one,’” said Lieutenant Rohan, handing Houdini a cup of water.

  “Louis, hand me the cuffs.”

  Detective Louis Bock materialized with two pairs of handcuffs and some leg irons. Houdini stripped and was shackled.

  “Look at the cell carefully and attentively and also closely,” Rohan said, “and see the professor has nothing concealed in the cell. Now he gets into the cell. Now I slam the door, so. Now I lock the door, so, and now I lock this padlock. Are you all right, professor?”

  Houdini nodded. Rohan corralled the reporters, and they all moved back to the main room. As time passed, “Manager Rohan grew a bit restive.”

  “The professor will come out all right,” he kept assuring himself.

  The professor did it in due time, “to the visible relief of Mr. Rohan.”

  “Do a few more tricks for the lads,” said Rohan, and Houdini obeyed to the extent of picking the locks of two other cells, taking the prisoner from one cell and placing him in another and “‘vicey versey’ as one of the detectives explained.

  “The entertainment closed with the passing round of cigars and the showering of congratulations upon Houdini and his accomplished impresario. Anybody that could smoke one of the cigars all the way through could do a harder trick than any Houdini did yesterday,” the reporter concluded.

  Houdini’s close relationship with Andy Rohan continued. Later correspondence revealed that Houdini would send Rohan spare parts of leg restraints, and Rohan would collect newspapers and forward them to Houdini.

  Even though Houdini maintained contact with police officials and wardens, by the spring of 1912, six years later, Houdini did his last jailbreak. By then the risk to his reputation was too substantial for him to chance a mishap.

  Houdini’s first film sequence depicted him escaping from a jail cell. From the collection of Dr. Bruce Averbook

  Boston’s love affair with Houdini remained unabated. In 1906, he played there for almost two months and continually filled the newspapers with stories recounting his exploits. Early in March he was challenged to escape from an iron-ringed wicker basket. The challengers insinuated that Houdini might have been able to pry some nails loose when he escaped from a packing crate the week before, so a wicker basket large enough to contain him was found. Before a packed house and three hundred committee members on the stage, Houdini climbed into the basket and three pairs of handcuffs were placed on his wrists. Then the cover was placed on the basket and affixed by means of several padlocks, the keyholes of which were sealed with the private seal of one of the challengers. Padlocks secured three strong iron bands. Then a network of half-inch rope and heavy chains was added. Houdini’s cabinet was pulled up around the hamper and the curtain closed.

  It took Houdini sixty-two minutes, but finally he threw the curtain open. He was panting, his bare arms were streaked with perspiration, and his clothes and his hair were disheveled. The audience cheered him for several minutes, and then he retired backstage, where it took him several minutes to muster up the strength to talk to The Boston Globe reporter. This had been the hardest of all of his tests, he assured the reporter. He couldn’t wait to call his wife, who was back at the hotel because it was too much of a strain on her to witness these special, grueling tests.

  Backstage, the challengers heaped praise on him. “I surrender to you,” the head of the committee told him. “For years I have been planning this test for you, and I admit my defeat. I am satisfied that, unaided, except by your own strength and ingenuity, you have succeeded in accomplishing that which myself and my associates believed absolutely impossible.” The reporter printed each of the challenger’s words. He even printed his name, Dr. Waitt. What he didn’t know was that Waitt was one of Houdini’s oldest confidants.

  Near the end of March, Houdini performed at a special show for 1,600 members of the Boston Athletic Association. He did card effects, the Needles and he escaped from a straitjacket in four minutes, a record for him. Earlier that afternoon, Dr. J. E. Rourke, an anatomical expert at Massachusetts General Hospital, had examined Houdini. “Houdini is the most remarkable man I ever examined.

  “I have examined Sandow and most all of the physical wonders of the country. But Houdini is in a class by himself.” Apparently the examination also gave Houdini a scare. “He said that my arms were too hard to be of healthy tissue,” Houdini confided to a reporter. “He said that I was threatened with being muscle-bound. My success…lies in my agility as well as my strength. To be muscle-bound would greatly lessen my agility.”

  A few days later, Dr. Waitt organized a special matinee at Keith’s for an invited audience of local-area doctors. Houdini astounded the doctors with both his Needles effect and by his offer to have his lips sewn up by a doctor before he escaped from handcuffs to nullify the possibility that he had hidden a key in his mouth. The offer was, of course, refused. Days later, the mystified doctors flooded Houdini with letters offering bizarre methods for the escape. “The urethra could easily be used to hide one or more small keys,” one doctor suggested.

  After his smashing success in Boston at Keith’s, Houdini thought he could earn more if he promoted his own show and took it out on the road. Working with his friend Whitman Osgood, a newspaperman, Houdini signed up the Kita-Muras—Imperial Japanese juggling troupe, the Zancigs, who did a telepathy act, and Carver & Pollard, a comedy act. Houdini, billing himself as “The Mysteriarch, The Greatest Sensation of England and America,” did a prison cell and barrel transposition and then closed the show with challenge escapes from handcuffs and leg irons. Trying to buck the established vaudeville circuits, Houdini found that his business instincts were not quite as powerful as his forearms, and after folding the show in May for the summer, he was back on the vaudeville circuit doing his own turn by the fall.

  On November 26, Houdini opened a run at the Temple Theatre in Detroit. During the show, a policeman named Mark Baker challenged him to escape from a pair of handcuffs. Houdini struggled for forty-five minutes and then stormed out of his cabinet.

  “These handcuffs have been tampered with,” he screamed. Then he glared up at Harrison Davies, a local amateur handcuff king, who was sitting in an upper box.

  “Is this your work?” Houdini said.

  Davies shook his head.

  “I’ll get them unlocked,” Houdini said grimly and retreated to his cabinet.

  For the next hour, Houdini worked on the tampered cuffs, the audience breathlessly awaiting the outcome. The tension was too much for Bess, who, fearing that he had been defeated, “retired to her dressing room in tears and went into hysterics,” The Detroit Journal reporter wrote.

  Finally, Houdini emerged, the handcuffs open. The audience cheered, but Houdini was not in
the mood to bask in congratulations.

  “These cuffs have been tampered with. Whoever did this was certain that they would never be opened,” he shouted. Then he addressed Officer Baker.

  “Are these your handcuffs?”

  Baker fidgeted.

  “No, they were given to me by a Detroit man to put on you. Further than that, I do not care to say anything.”

  Houdini immediately suspected another handcuff worker, a man named Grose, who was playing opposite him at the Crystal Theatre.

  All in all, it was an embarrassing, inauspicious opening. Houdini went to his hotel and brooded all night.

  Standing on the Belle Isle Bridge, he gazed at the current of the river twenty-five feet below him. He had stripped down to his trousers and with the raw wind factored in, the temperature was around twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit, but even though he was shivering, he seemed impervious to it. His mind was elsewhere, focusing on the water, going over what it would feel like when he sliced into the current from that height. Right before he approached the railing, he hastily scribbled a makeshift will on an envelope. He wrote: “I leave all to Bess.” Then, suddenly, he was ready. It’s now or never, he thought. He tensed his muscles. “Goodbye,” he impulsively shouted and jumped off the bridge.

  The manacled bridge jumps were the first of Houdini’s spectacular outdoor escapes. From the collection of Dr. Bruce Averbook

  And the thousands of people standing on the bridge held their breath as one.

  Houdini had conceived of doing a handcuffed bridge leap as far back as 1899. In July of 1901, he had been beaten to the punch when an English society illusionist named Maurice Garland dove manacled off the Wellington pier into the sea at Yarmouth. Both Houdini and Garland might have been inspired to do their spectacular leap by the example of a New York City bookie named Steve Brodie, who garnered worldwide fame in 1886 when he allegedly jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and survived in order to win a $200 bet. His name entered the vernacular, and “pulling a Brodie” became synonymous with doing something spectacular and dangerous.