The War of the Worlds Murder - By Max Allan Collins Page 0,35
each child followed the ribbon through the house...and we all were led to a present of our very own!”
“Ah!”
“Mine led up the stairs and into a guest bedroom, where under the bed I discovered my prize...” Gibson leaned forward, milking it. “...a box of magic tricks.”
Welles’s eyes widened, as if his guest had reported discovering Blackbeard’s hidden treasure.
“It was German-made, with all the standard tricks of the day—I suppose, objectively speaking, it was nothing special. But it changed my life. It was as if that ribbon had led me to my future.”
Welles, smiling with delight, eyes sparkling, said, “No wonder we’re kindred spirits! My godfather gave me a professional magician’s box of stage tricks—I was five! And it was my godfather, my guardian—Dr. Bernstein—who took me backstage to meet Houdini, when I was six!”
Finally, Gibson thought, the Houdini story. Would it be true?
“I apparently impressed the great man with my childish enthusiasm—I blurted out virtually everything I knew about magic in a matter of a minute or two—and that was how I came to be taught a simple but effective trick with a red handkerchief, presenting me with everything I needed to pull it off myself—the vanishing coin trick?”
“I know it well.”
Placing a handkerchief over the left hand, the magician pokes a pocket in the cloth, so that the coin can be dropped there; then the magician shakes the handkerchief...and the coin has vanished! (This was achieved by having a rubber band around the fingers and thumb of the left hand, which closed the “pocket” the coin was pushed into, so that the coin remained caught and hidden when the handkerchief was shaken out.)
Welles leaned forward, one eye narrowed. “I was always a quick study, so I followed Houdini to his dressing room like a stray puppy. He glanced around at me, not knowing whether to be irritated or amused. ‘Look, sir!’ I said...and I performed the trick for him!”
Gibson chuckled and clapped, once.
Welles lifted his eyebrows. “Well...let us say that the great Harry Houdini was less than overwhelmed by my childish legerdemain. He gave me a stern scolding: never, ever was a trick to be performed until it had been practiced a thousand times!”
“Not bad advice.”
“Splendid advice...but there’s more. I practiced and practiced the vanishing coin trick, and a few months later, when Houdini returned with his stage act, we again went backstage, before the show...this time it was with my father accompanying me, on a rare visit home...and were welcomed warmly. Houdini remembered my obnoxious, precocious little self. I was about to demonstrate my improved stagecraft when a certain Carl Brema arrived—”
Gibson grinned. “Of course—the manufacturer of magic tricks.”
“Yes. Brema had a vanishing lamp trick he’d just perfected. He demonstrated it for Houdini, who beamed and said, ‘Wonderful, Carl—I’ll put it in the show tonight!’ ”
Welles’s roar of laughter was worthy of Henry the Eighth, and Gibson—despite the overeating-inspired discomfort—joined in heartily.
Now Gibson believed Welles had really met Houdini—the story sounded just like the man....
“There’s a coincidence,” Gibson said, “that further cements our destiny together.”
“What’s that?”
“The trick of mine I mentioned the other day—the Hindu wand trick Houdini requested from me, but died before he could use it...?”
“Yes?”
“It was Carl Brema who executed my design—who built the wands for Houdini to use.”
“But never did.”
“No.”
His expression intense, Welles sat forward. “Walter, I must have that trick. When I take out my magic act on the road, that trick must be included!”
“You haven’t even seen it yet, Orson...”
“If it’s good enough for Houdini and Gibson, it’s good enough for Welles. Name your price!”
Gibson raised his palms in surrender. “I already told you, Orson, it’s yours—and I wouldn’t take a dime for it. The experience of this weekend is payment enough.”
Welles glowed, the fat cigar in his teeth at a rakish angle. He lifted a coffee cup for a toast; Gibson clinked cups with him.
“To us,” Welles said. “To our collaboration....”
Soon—looking every bit the magician with his Shadowesque cloak, slouch hat, black suit, bow tie and walking stick, Welles escorted Gibson to the elevators. As they waited, Welles blurted, “Walter—do you really believe in magic?”
“As an art?”
“As a science...even a religion. What we do with stagecraft—whether it’s the Mercury transforming some musty classic into a vital contemporary experience, or sawing a woman in half who then gets up and walks around—is tap onto the public’s fascination with the unknown, the occult. Fakers we may be, but what we touch in people is genuine.”