“I was with Houdini almost constantly in his last illness and we had many interesting discussions about his work, about spiritualism and many other philosophical fields.
One evening he said to me, ‘Doctor, you know I always wanted to be surgeon, but I never could. I have always regretted it.’
I answered him, ‘Why, Mr. Houdini, that is one of the most amazing statements I have ever heard. Here you are, the greatest magician and the greatest entertainer of your age. You make countless thousands of people happy. You have an unlimited income and you are admired and respected by everybody, while I am just an ordinary dub of a surgeon trying to struggle through life.’
He looked up and smiled. ‘Perhaps those things are true, doctor, but the difference between me and you is that you actually DO things for people and I, in almost every respect, am a fake.’
The Mediums Approach
I have never forgotten that conversation. You know, of course, that Houdini’s real name was Weiss and he was the son of a Jewish rabbi who lived in Milwaukee and that of the 23 members of his amazing troupe, 21 were relatives.
You probably knew too that his wife was the little page who followed him around on the stage and was constantly taking care the perfection of his art should be in no way marred.
But you do NOT know that he said to me just before going into the operating room, ‘Please keep that woman’ pointing to his wife, ‘out of my room all of the time, because she is the most peculiar woman I have ever known in my life.’
So you can see that when it was claimed in California that for 10 years a group of good folks was trying to get in touch with him through an approved spiritualistic medium, I took little interest in the prospect of such an accomplishment. I was quite sure that if he really intended to communicate with anybody, it would not be is apparent soul mate.
The Huge Insurance
As a final interesting touch, to me at least, you might like to know that after his death, it was found that Houdini carried upwards of a million dollars in insurance and that he carried two polices with tow of the largest companies in the country totaling approximately $200,000, which paid double indemnity in case of accidental death.
The insurance companies sent various representatives to me and tried to convince me that injury had nothing to do with Mr. Houdini’s death. But inasmuch as I knew that he had been struck on the left side of the abdomen, that his symptoms had started immediately following the blow, that he had no symptoms prior to that injury and that from the beginning of the injury, event progressed steadily to his death, there was nothing for me to say to the insurance representatives except that I believed this was a case of traumatic appendicitis.
The Best God Gave Us
It is the only case of traumatic appendicitis, I have ever seen in my lifetime, but the logic of the thing seemed to me to indicate that Mr. Houdini died of appendicitis, the direct result of the injury.
Morris Ernst, now a lawyer of national reputation, was Houdini’s attorney and eventually the insurance companies paid the double indemnity on the policies involved, because I had told Mr. Ernst the facts as they were and gave my professional opinion that the injury had been the inciting cause of death.
It is too bad that we did not have in those days the antibiotics which are now available. It might well have been that life of a magnificent entertainer and a fine character could have been prolonged for some years.
Who knows? In any event, we did the best we could as God gave us the light to see and a fine gentleman went to his premature reward.”
The Master Mystery (first four episodes) was first shown at a special trade show on November 7, 1918 at the Strand Theatre in New York City.
