Free of the chair, but still completely ensconced in the bindings, Houdini lay so still among the wooden shards that I worried the effort had killed him.
“Houdini—?” I asked tentatively. “Harry? Are you all right?”
“Perfectly fine,” he replied brightly, his energy miraculously restored. “And now, step three.”
Looking very much like a lively Egyptian mummy, Houdini rolled away from the remains of the chair which had held him and lay flat on the cold stone floor of his cell. Only the outermost layer of his shroud had been loosened as he broke away from the chair. He was still wrapped as tightly as ever in a seemingly impregnable thickness of fetters. Separated from him by the sturdy door and steel bars, I could only watch helplessly as Houdini began his struggle anew. I daresay I felt the torment almost as keenly as he did when, with redoubled effort, Houdini writhed and groaned, rolled and kicked, so that in all ways his condition now resembled that of a madman. Perhaps that is what so frightened me: the recognition that I had seen a somewhat similar struggle before, years earlier, when I had watched a patient at Bedlam in his death throes.
So far as I was able, I tried to determine Houdini’s progress by the positions of his arms and legs within the confining cocoon, but this soon proved impossible. So laborious were his efforts that I found myself arriving at the absurd conclusion that he must have four arms and three legs at work under all that leather and steel. At one point, though, I could not fail to observe a hideous protrusion just below his neck, which, even amid all of his other contortions, indicated a serious injury.
“Houdini!” I cried. “Your shoulder is dislocated!”
“I know—” he gasped, mastering the discomfort with short swallows of air. “Did it — intentionally.”
“But the pain! It must be excrutiating!”
“Not — so bad.” He choked. “It — it’s necessary to bring — arm about — there!” He expelled a long breath. “It’s back in the socket, and my hand is where I need it.”
Indeed, for the first time a bit of Houdini’s body became visible as his hand inched upward along his neck, pulling free of the thick leather collar and chains. Even for all I had seen, it was not until that hand appeared that I fully realised there was a method to all this madness, and that the great escape artist actually would be able to escape. This realisation so gladdened my heart that I was unable to stop myself from cheering and pounding gleefully on the door of the cell. “Bravo!” I shouted. “Bravo, Houdini!”
“Calm down, John,” Houdini cautioned from the floor. “Don’t bring the guard, I’m not out yet. This is only step four.” It occurred to me then that these careful steps and progressions of his were rather like the methods of Sherlock Holmes, in which a seemingly impossible problem was solved through a meticulously planned and flawlessly executed series of stratagems. While Holmes’s exertions were primarily cerebral, Houdini’s possessed an almost identical artistic cunning which, as I watched him unfasten a heavy steel clasp about his throat, seemed no less incredible.
“That first buckle was the hardest,” Houdini said, straining his free hand toward the next in a line which held the leather straps about him. “Now I should be able to get the second — there — and the third—” But despite his best effort, Houdini was unable to reach the third buckle with his free hand. Undaunted, he bent his body double and seized the buckle in his teeth, pulling it open with a brisk snap of his head.
“Bravo!” I cried again, being careful this time not to rouse the guard. “I’ve never seen anything like it!”
“I’d be surprised if you had,” Houdini answered with a laugh. “No one else can do it!” With this deserved self-flattery, Houdini undertook what was plainly the last in his series of toils. Twisting and turning still more, ever loosening the swathe about him, Houdini at last began to writhe free of the formidable bonds. Inch by inch, first his arm, then his shoulder, Houdini undulated towards his freedom. At first I was irresistibly reminded of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. But as Houdini progressed, the impression became that of a babe at birth, a notion given weight by the unexplained absence of his clothing, and, even more distressingly, by the raw and bloodied condition of his exposed flesh.
“Harry!” I cried. “You are badly hurt!”
“It’s nothing, Doctor,” he assured me.
“Nothing? You are bleeding! And where are your clothes?”
“They took them away from me before I was tied up,” he answered, now half free of the swaddling, “in case I had any tools concealed in them.”
“Abominable!”
“Not really, John. I do have tools concealed in them.”
“But it is an insult! You have been seriously degraded!”
“Perhaps,” said he, casting off the last of those ungodly bonds with an exhausted but triumphant gesture, “but not any longer. Now I am a free man.”
It is impossible to say who felt the greater sense of relief as Houdini lay back on the cold stone floor of his cell. He had just overcome what may well have been the greatest single challenge of his career; but I, still clutching at that small barred window, felt tremendously moved as though I, too, had undergone an arduous rite, and I found myself offering a silent prayer of thanks.
At length Houdini drew himself up, stretching and testing his sore limbs, and examined his surroundings as if for the first time. “Well, my friend,” he said, pacing about the cell, “I’d say the first thing we have to do is to recover my clothes. They’re in a cell at the end of the corridor.”
“Have you forgotten that you are still locked in a prison cell?” I asked. “The first thing we must do is to get you out of there. I have brought Holmes’s lock-picking tools, will they be sufficient for you to—?”
It was over in an instant — a flash of metal, a sharp click, Houdini’s hand rapping against the lock-plate — and the heavy cell door swung open, before I had even managed to complete my sentence.
“Were you saying something, John?”
“I thought your tools were in your clothes,” I replied evenly.
“Only some of them, John. Only some of them.” He gave me his trademark wink. “Hmm. These British gaols are a bit draughty. We must find my clothes before I catch pneumonia.”
“Very good. And then we must find a way to get you out of this building. My plan is this: I shall go to the main entrance and distract the guards in some manner, enabling you to—”
“No, John.”
“What do you mean? It may be a bit risky, but surely—”
“No, no. You don’t understand. I won’t let you compromise yourself any further on my behalf. You are already implicated in my escape. If it becomes known that you have helped me in any way, you would be considered as guilty as I am.”
“I assure you, I am fully aware of the indelicacy of the situation, but it is still my full wish to assist you. Nothing would give me greater pleasure.”
“I thank you for that, John. You are a true gentleman. But I can get out of here without placing you in the hazard. You have a cab? Good. Pull it around by the west wall, near the exercise yard. I’ll get my clothes and join you there in ten minutes. It will be a full two hours before I am missed.”
“You’re certain you can manage alone?”
“Certain? I am Houdini! Now go and tell the guard I am asleep. Or that I am busy singing British anthems.”
“But Harry,” I asked as he hastened me off towards the exit, “how is it that you have waited until now to escape, if you were so readily able to do so earlier?”
“Because I gave Holmes my word of honour that I would not, and that,” he said, swinging the cell door closed, “is the one bond I never break.”
Seventeen
VIGIL AT GAIRSTOWE
Within ten minutes Houdini and I were clattering through the night on our way to Stoke Newington. In that short space of time, Houdini had located and donned his black suit, escaped from the prison building, and scaled the wall of the exercise ya
rd. Looking not in the least bit the worse for these efforts, he listened eagerly as I described the events of the previous two days and outlined our purpose in returning to Gairstowe House.
“I see you had much the same reaction as I did to Herr Kleppini,” Houdini commented when I had finished. “Likeable fellow, isn’t he?”
“He is a villain, just as you said; and if Holmes is correct, Kleppini will not be the only one we capture this evening.”
“Yes, a mysterious stranger. I wonder who it could be?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, though I fancy Holmes suspects more than he was telling.”
“Possibly, but don’t blame him for keeping it from you, John. We all have our professional secrets. They provide a useful distraction from our private ones.”
I was curious to know just what he meant by this remark, but I did not press the point for we had arrived at the wrought-iron gates of Gairstowe House. Stepping down from the cab, I was surprised to see young Turks, the amiable guard I had met previously, standing at the sentry-post.
“Dr Watson!” he called. “There you are! I’ve had a wire from Lord O’Neill asking me to take the late watch this evening. He seemed to feel that you might need me.”
“Very good,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Not at all. Nasty night, though,” he said, fortifying himself with the contents of a small flask. “Very nasty night.”
Turks’s assessment was correct. A heavy fog now lent a chill to an already bitter night. Houdini did not have an overcoat, but he did not appear affected by the cold.
“This fog is just as eerie as I’d imagined,” he said, peering about. “I’ve read about London fogs in... well, in your stories, John. All that’s missing now is—”
From out of the swirling mists stepped Sherlock Holmes, dressed in his Inverness travelling cape and deerstalker cap.
“Good evening, Watson,” said he. “Ready for the hunt? Mr Houdini, I am delighted that you could join us.”
“Nothing could have kept me away.”
“I thought not. Turks, you’d best remain at your post. And mind our horses and trap, if you would. Now, gentlemen, shall we go in?”
Turks swung open the gate and the three of us proceeded to the marbled entrance. “We’d better not use any of the interior lighting,” Holmes cautioned. “I have brought the dark lantern; it should suffice.” He reached under his cloak and withdrew not only the lantern, but also my service revolver, which he handed to me without comment.
“Expecting trouble?” Houdini raised his eyebrows at this.
“Watson’s revolver often takes up where deductive reasoning leaves off,” Holmes answered, guiding us down the dim passageway which led to Lord O’Neill’s study. “Here we are,” he said, shining the lantern on the massive vault door, which was now securely closed. “This is the room from which you are supposed to have stolen the papers, Mr Houdini. If all goes according to design, the real culprits will have to repeat the theft tonight.”
“Shall we wait for them here?” I asked.
Holmes cast the lantern’s beam about the stark corridor. “There is no cover here,” he said. “If we intend to surprise them in the act, we shall have to wait inside the chamber. That is why we have invited Mr Houdini. Now, if you would be so good as to open the vault door—?”
Houdini eyed the vault warily and fingered the first of the three complicated locking mechanisms. “Sorry,” he said “I can’t do it.”
“Houdini,” said Holmes impatiently, “this is no time for your professional secrecy. Watson and I will keep quiet.”
“You don’t understand. I can’t do it. I can’t get in. I wish I could help you.”
“What! But at your performances at the Savoy you open a vault door without so much as blinking an eye!”
“There’s a crucial difference, Holmes. At the Savoy I break out of a safe. That is a fairly simple thing to do. A safe is designed to keep burglars from breaking in, not from breaking out. Once inside the safe, it is easy to get at the locking mechanisms. But from the outside, the locks are sealed in metal. I can’t get at them.”
“This is very inconvenient,” Holmes said.
“But Holmes,” I offered, “I don’t understand why it is necessary for Houdini to open the door at all. Why do we not simply telephone Lord O’Neill and ask him to open the door for us?”
“Because he would never agree to it,” Holmes answered quietly.
“I don’t understand; I thought he instructed the guard to let us in?”
“Lord O’Neill does not know that we are here. I sent the instructions to Turks in his name.”
Houdini laughed. “Looks as if we’ve both overstepped our limits a bit, eh Holmes? Maybe you’re not as clever as Watson makes you out to be.”
Eager to prevent what would surely have been an acerbic reply, I unfolded Holmes’s elaborate set of lock-picking tools and offered it to Houdini. “Do you suppose these tools might help you to get into the vault? Kleppini must have used a similar set.”
“No, my friend. Those tools are useless. They are child’s playthings, I’m surprised that a man of your intelligence would be carrying them.” I stole a glance at Holmes, but he did not appear to have heard. “I hate to spoil the plan, but there is no possible way for me to get us in there. This is not something I admit lightly.”
As Houdini spoke, I perceived a subtle change in the manner of Sherlock Holmes. Despite the apparent frustration of his plan, Holmes had resumed that lightness of spirit which I have come to associate with moments of revelation. Lost in thought, he walked to the vault door and ran his hand along its workings. “Of course,” he murmured. “Ingenious.” He turned to face us. “I believe that you are right, Houdini. Perhaps I am not so clever, after all. I have certainly not demonstrated any particular skill in this investigation, at any rate. I attribute my failings, at least partially, to the undue haste dictated by circumstance. But now the matter has become plain.”
“You have solved the case, Holmes?”
“I know how the robbery was done, Watson. That should occupy us for the present.”
“Then you know how Kleppini was able to break into the vault when Houdini could not?” I regretted saying this immediately, for Houdini gave me a murderous look.
“I know how Kleppini got inside the vault, yes.”
“Look, Holmes,” said Houdini, quite hotly, “I don’t know what you’re,getting at here, but it isn’t possible that Kleppini could open that door. I’d stake my last dollar on it.”
“You’re certain? Then how were the papers stolen?”
“Holmes, Houdini has repeatedly said that the door is impenetrable. If a man of his skills cannot find a way of entering the chamber, surely Kleppini would be far less likely to succeed?” I said this hoping both to appease Houdini and draw out Holmes. Did ever a physician minister to two such sensitive vanities?
“And yet the papers are missing,” Holmes reminded us.
Houdini snorted. “Next you’ll be telling us that Kleppini converted his body to ectoplasm and oozed through the door! Spit it out, Holmes! How was the crime done?”
“You yourself have given me the answer, Mr Houdini. Let us redirect your energies to the problem. Now, you are a magician of some repute—”
“World’s greatest,” Houdini amended quietly.
“Are you? I’ve heard good reports of T. Nelson Downs, the coin manipulator—”
“I am unquestionably the world’s greatest magician and escape artist.”
“Fine. Then the question at hand should present little difficulty. Suppose you wished to achieve the illusion of having breached this chamber, but recognised that the door was impassable. How would you go about it?”
“I’d conceal myself inside the room while the vault door was open. That way I could break out from inside once the chamber had been sealed.”
“Just so.”
“Holmes, do you mean to say that Kleppini was in the room the whole time?” T
he idea seemed absurd to me. “Even during Lord O’Neill’s conference with the prince?”
“Precisely.”
Houdini and I stared at the heavy vault door.
“But—”
“That would mean—”
“So it would. If Kleppini has successfully duplicated the crime this evening, he is in the chamber even as we speak.”
“But that cannot be!” I instinctively lowered my voice so that if Kleppini were present, he would not overhear. “Kleppini could not—”
“There is no need to lower your voice, Watson. The chamber is quite impervious to sound.”
“Kleppini cannot be in the vault,” I resumed at a normal volume. “We left him in Brighton. It is inconceivable that he could have arrived here so far in advance of us, however he managed to get inside.”
“Look, Holmes,” Houdini continued, “I don’t know Lord O’Neill very well, but he’d have to be a simpleton to take such precautions to secure the study, and then overlook a man hiding in it!”
“Nevertheless,” said Holmes, “Kleppini is hidden in the chamber, and it is only a matter of time before he breaks out.”
“Do you propose that we simply wait until he does?”
“I don’t see that we have any choice.”
“This is absurd!” cried Houdini. “Do you really expect us to wait here, maybe all night, on the chance that Kleppini is in there? Why don’t we—”
“Harry,” I interrupted gently, “I’m certain that Holmes’s theory is correct. I suggest we follow his plan.”
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