The Great Dissolution

Houdini loved to tell a story about a private performance he staged for an audience of one. The performance had nothing to do with magic or the art of escape, and yet he called it the greatest thrill of his life. In June 1912, while playing at Hammerstein’s Roof Garden, he asked to be paid his weekly salary in gold. At the end of the week he was handed a canvas sack heavy with double eagle gold coins and took it straight home to 278, into his mother’s room. “Mother, Mother,” he cried, “do you remember the promise I made