Message #13447

[Bianca]

THE RIDDLE OF HOUDINI                                                                           continued



When one considers that these bonds were often handcuffs or twisted copper
wire, and that the manifestations occurred, in many cases, within a few seconds
of the closing of the cabinet, this admission by one, who claims that he knows,
is of very great importance.  We will return to this later, after we have enume-
rated a few of his results.

He coul
d, and continually did, walk straight out of any prison cell in which he
might be confined. 

They placed him at Washington in the cell in which Guiteau, the murderer of
Garfied, had been locked, but he readily emerged.  In the letter from which I
have already quoted, he says to me:

"I pledge upon my word of honour that I was never given any assistance, nor
was in collusion with anyone."

This was clearly the case, for he performed the feat many times in different
places, and was always searched to prove that he had no tools in his possess-
ion.  Sometime the grining warders had hardly got out of the passage, before their
prisoner was at their heels.

It takes some credulity, I think, to say that this was, in the ordinary sense of the
word, a trick.