Many mysteries still surround the death of Houdini, although many of these mysteries have come about thanks to the fact that there are at least seven different versions of how his death occurred. They include him dying in the arms of Bess in Boston and Chicago, dying while hanging suspended upside-down in a glass tank, dying while performing at the bottom of a river, dying while trapped in a locked casket and others. What actually happened is what you have just read in the preceding portion of the chapter and it is known that Houdini died of a ruptured appendix. It’s likely though that the appendix did not rupture when the young man punched him in the abdomen in his dressing room. This could have caused the actual rupture, but Houdini was probably suffering from appendicitis before the incident. However, the infamous punch is generally accepted as the legendary cause of death.
And more mysteries came about in the days following his death as reports from clairvoyants who claimed to have predicted Houdini’s death and to have witnessed signs and omens of it began coming in. A Mr. Gysel stated that at 10:58 on the evening of October 24, a photograph of Houdini that he had framed and hung on the wall suddenly “fell to the ground, breaking the glass. I now know that Houdini will die,” he allegedly said.
Gysel’s prediction came as no surprise to Houdini’s Spiritualist adversaries, who had been predicting his death for years. Sooner or later, they were bound to be correct! In 1924, Margery’s spirit guide, Walter, had given him “a year or less” and then he had predicted his demise on December 25, 1925. According to his former friend, Conan Doyle, he and others in his “home circle” had recorded an ominous message about the magician several months before his death. The message read that “Houdini is doomed, doomed, doomed!” And on October 13, a medium named Mrs. Wood wrote a letter to the novelist Fulton Oursler that read: “Three years ago, the spirit of Dr. Hyslop said ‘the waters are black for Houdini’ and he foretold disaster would claim him while performing before an audience in a theatre. Dr. Hyslop now says the injury is more serious than has been reported and that Houdini’s days as a magician are over.”
According to accounts, Houdini himself had premonitions of the coming events. Among his clippings was one from 1919 recording the collapse, onstage in Detroit, of a comedian named Sidney Drew. The performer had taken ill in St. Louis, but had continued to play, against all advice, until in Detroit, when he could simply go no further. Those who discovered this clipping among Houdini’s belongings must have found the death of the comedian to be eerily similar to that of Houdini himself!
His friend, fellow magician Joseph Dunninger, also had an eerie story to recall after Houdini’s death. He said that on one early morning in October 1926, Houdini called him in New York and asked him to come with his car to West 113th Street, as he was in a hurry and had to move some things. When the car was loaded, he asked Dunninger to drive through the park.
Dunninger said that as they got to the exit on Central Park West, around 72nd Street, Houdini grabbed him by the arm and urged him to go back to his house. Puzzled, Dunninger asked him if he had forgot something? “Don’t ask questions, Joe,” Houdini replied, “just turn around and go back.”
Dunninger drove back to the house and when they arrived, Houdini climbed out of the car and stood looking at the house in the rain. He stayed that way, water dripping down his face and soaking his clothing, for a few minutes and then he got back into the auto without saying a word. Dunninger drove off and when the two men again approached the western exit of the park, he glanced over and saw that Houdini’s shoulders had started to shake. He was crying. His friend asked him what was wrong and Houdini gave a rather cryptic answer: “I’ve seen my house for the last time, Joe. I’ll never see my house again.”
“And as far as I know,” Dunninger later wrote. “He never did.”
