The Ectoplasmic Man (2 page)

I have made a few awkward but, I hope, illuminating footnotes in those places where Watson’s notorious murkiness asserts itself, but otherwise I will intrude no further on the reader’s patience. Watson is in good form as always, a friend to the reader and the one fixed point in a changing age...

Daniel Stashower

New York City

February 12, 1985

I
n all my years with Sherlock Holmes I encountered only a handful of men whose wilfulness and ingenuity rivalled that of Holmes himself. One such man was William Gladstone, the late prime minister. Another was a gentleman in Cornwall who fashioned small weapons from dried fruit. But by far the most extraordinary of these was Harry Houdini, the renowned magician and escape artist.

Sherlock Holmes and Harry Houdini met in April of the year 1910. Holmes, drawing near to his retirement, was then at the peak of his fame. Houdini, twenty years the younger man, had not yet attained the remarkable international recognition that was soon to be his. The first meeting of these two men was by no means cordial, but while they never became intimates, there developed between them a tacit respect born of the recognition that each was the unparalleled master of his craft.

Their encounter and the remarkable events which attended it form one of the most singular cases of my friend’s career. Houdini, always secretive concerning the details of his private life, forbade me to write
of the matter within his lifetime. Regrettably, I am no longer bound by that constraint. Houdini is dead well before his time, and by a means which I myself might have foreseen.
*

I return, then, to the year 1910. I endeavour to fix the year precisely, for I am not insensitive to the complaints of some of my readers regarding my carelessness with dates. This was the year in which George V ascended to the throne; and a time in which, though we did not know it at the time, dark reverberations throughout Europe drew us closer and closer to the Great War.

John H. Watson, M.D.

2 November 1926

^*
Houdini died on October 31, 1926, of acute peritonitis resulting from severe blows to the stomach.

T
HE
C
RIME
O
F
T
HE
C
ENTURY

T
he crime of the century?” asked Sherlock Holmes, stirring at the firecoals with a metal poker. “Are you quite certain, Lestrade? After all, the century is young yet, is it not?” He turned to the inspector, whose face was still flushed with the drama of his pronouncement. “Perhaps, my friend, it would be more prudent to call it the crime of the decade, or possibly the most serious crime yet this year, but one really ought to resist such hyperbole.”

“I must caution you not to make light of the situation, Mr Holmes,” said Inspector Lestrade, standing at the bow window. “I did not travel all the way across town merely for your amusement. The case of which I speak has implications which even you cannot begin to grasp. In fact, I am somewhat overstepping my authority in consulting with you at all, but as I just happened to run across Watson here—”

“Indeed.” Holmes replaced the poker in the fire-irons stand and turned to face us. He was wearing a sombre grey frock-coat which emphasised his great height and rigid bearing. Holmes was, as I have often recorded, a bit over six feet tall, thin almost to the point of cadaverousness, and possessed
of sharp features and an aquiline nose which gave him the appearance of a hawk. Standing there with his back to the fire and his elbows resting on the mantelpiece, it was difficult to say whether he had struck a posture of ease or advertence. “I think it would be best, Lestrade, if you told your story from the beginning. You say that you suspect this young American of a great crime, is this so?”

“It is.”

“And what did you say this fellow’s name was?”

“Houdini.”

“Yes, Houdini. Watson, will you have a look in the index?”

I selected one of the bulging commonplace books from its shelf and began paging through the entires. “H-o-u, is it? Here is the Duke of Holderness, and here — ah yes! Houdini, Harry. Born on March 24, 1874, in Budapest. This is curious, though... there is also record of his having been born on April 26 of that same year, in Appleton, Wisconsin.”

“Curious indeed!”

“He is an American magician, best known for his remarkable escapes. It is said that he has never failed to free himself from any form of restraint. He is particularly fond of challenging police officials to bind him in official constraints, from which he then releases himself.”

I heard a suppressed chuckle near the fireplace.

“Houdini also has an interest in the new flying machines, and has actually made several short flights himself.”

Lestrade scoffed. “That’s just the sort of thing I’m talking about! What kind of person is it who tampers with unnatural machinery!”

“On the contrary, Lestrade, I’d say our Mr Houdini shows a keen interest in the advance of science, as well as a highly adventurous spirit. He sounds like a most surprising individual. Is there anything else, Watson?”

“Nothing,” I said, replacing the heavy volume.

“I presume then that you have something to add to Watson’s description, Lestrade?”

“I do indeed, Mr Holmes,” said the inspector, reaching into his breast pocket for a small notebook. “Let’s see... where to begin... ah, right!” Lestrade jabbed a forefinger into the notebook. “On the day before yesterday, this fellow turns up at the Yard and demands to be locked up in one of our cells! Well, I’ve been on the force near thirty years now and this is the first time anyone ever volunteered to be locked up. So we looked him over pretty carefully, and he says, ‘I want to be locked up so I can escape!’ We all got a good laugh out of that, I can tell you. But this young fellow wouldn’t give up! He insisted that he’d done the same thing in Germany and France, and he brought out the newspaper clippings to prove it!” Lestrade slapped his notebook against his open palm.

“Well, Mr Holmes, it’s one thing to break out of those tin boxes they have over there, but our British gaols are the finest in the world. If this little American thought he was just going to walk in and walk out, quick as you please, we were only too happy to oblige him. So we took him into the ground floor cell block and put him in a free cage. Frankly, I thought he’d back away when he saw the lock on the door, but he didn’t, so we locked him up tight. I promised to come back for him in a few hours, when he’d had enough.”

Holmes looked over at the inspector. “And then?”

Lestrade clasped his hands behind his back and looked out of the window. “Thirty minutes later we received a telephone call in the C.I.D. office. It was Houdini. He said he’d made it back to his hotel all right and he just wanted us to know he’d left a surprise in the cell block. Naturally we didn’t believe it, but when we got in there we saw that not only had he broken out, but he’d also switched around every prisoner in the entire wing! Seventeen prisoners and not one of them was in his right cell! We had quite a job just — Mr Holmes! I fail to see what is so
amusing in all this!”

“Quite so, Lestrade,” said Holmes with a short cough, “forgive me. But still, I don’t see that your problem is as grave as you suppose. I’m sure it’s simply a question of improving the design of your goal. Perhaps Mr Houdini could be persuaded to cooperate—”

“My God, Mr Holmes!” Lestrade cried impatiently. “Do you really think me such a fool as all that? The cells are nothing! That was only the beginning! But if he can get in and out of our gaol cells he can get in and out of anything! Anything at all! Some of the men even suspect... well, they suspect...” He paused and looked down at his notebook.

“Yes?”

“It’s nothing.”

“There, Lestrade, you were on the point of saying something.”

Lestrade cast a wary eye at Holmes and then at me. “I don’t believe any of it, mind you, but some of the men say that Houdini is a... a spirit medium.”

“Oh, come!”

Lestrade held out his palms in a gesture of disavowal. “It’s not my theory, I assure you, but it has to be taken into account. I’ve done a bit of research on this fellow and the results are very surprising. Very surprising indeed. Just consider the facts for a moment, Mr Holmes, and see what you make of them. Every night, on stages all over the world, Houdini allows himself to be tied up, wrapped in chains, nailed into packing crates, and I don’t know what all, and he always gets free! Now what does that suggest to you?”

“Great skill and technical proficiency?”

“Perhaps, but don’t you find it in the least strange that he never fails? Not once? Can you say the same?” Here Lestrade was referring, rather indelicately I thought, to the theft of the black pearl of the Borgias, an affair which even Holmes had been unable to penetrate. Though he
would soon recover the pearl in a case I have recorded elsewhere,
^*
the matter weighed heavily on him at present. I realised then how great was Lestrade’s sensitivity over the issue at hand, for he was never one to open old wounds.

Holmes reached into the scuttle and threw a lump of sea coal onto the hearth. “Occasionally my methods fail me,” he observed quietly, “but then, I receive no assistance from the other world.”

Lestrade looked away quickly. “I didn’t mean to give offence, Mr Holmes, I’m simply asking you to keep an open mind to this thing, as I’ve done.” He flipped through the pages in his book. “Now, there’s a group in America that calls itself the Society for Psychic Research. These aren’t witch-doctors in this group, they’re scientists and doctors, reasonable sorts like you and me. This society swears up and down that Houdini achieves his effects through psychic means. They say no other explanation is possible.”

“And what of Houdini himself? Does he claim to traffic with the spirits?”

“No, he’s denied it repeatedly. But don’t you see? Even that fits the theory. If he were using special psychic powers to make a living as a magician, he’d have to conceal his gifts in order to protect his livelihood!” Lestrade gave a nervous laugh. “I know that what I’m saying sounds incredible, but two days ago this fellow walked out of one of our tightest cells without turning a hair. No one has ever done it before, and frankly I doubt if anyone will ever do it again. A thing like that sets me thinking maybe we are dealing with... well, with the unknown. Now I’m not saying I hold with all of this psychic claptrap, but after Houdini was at the Yard I went down to the Savoy to see one of these performances of his.
What do you suppose I saw?”

“Do tell.”

“It was astonishing. I’ve never seen anything like it. During the course of his magic show, Houdini had his workmen construct a solid brick wall on the stage behind him. There was no trickery about it, I’m certain. The wall was put together brick by brick; it was absolutely solid. And he had it positioned so that he couldn’t get around it in any way, but somehow he managed to travel from one side to the other, right before my eyes! Right through the wall! Now how could he possibly have done that?”

“He was assisted by elves?”

“According to the Society for Psychic Research, Houdini can only do this trick by reducing his entire body to ectoplasm.”

“Ectoplasm?”

“It’s the substance of spirit emanations. What ghosts are made of. I know that sounds ridiculous, but how else could a man pass through a solid substance? At least at Scotland Yard there was a door in the cell, but this was a solid brick wall. So naturally when the theft occurred—”

“Theft?” Holmes was instantly alert. “Would this theft be the crime of the century you mentioned earlier?”

“The same. I can’t give you the details just yet because the matter is highly confidential and involves certain highly placed individuals. But I’m convinced that the crime can only have been committed by someone who can walk through walls. Mind you, I’m not saying he actually does walk through walls, but he certainly manages to convey that impression. So if you would just come down to the Savoy with me and have a look—”