by Brad Ricca
In Lincoln’s Ghost, author Brad Ricca shares with The History Reader the incredible untold story of how the world’s greatest magician, Harry Houdini, waged war upon Spiritualism, uncovering unknown magic, political conspiracies, and surprising secrets along the way. Read on for a featured excerpt that focuses on Mina Crandon, an American psychic who performed under the stage name Margery the Medium.
THE CURSE
AUGUST 23, 1924
THE COPLEY HOTEL
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
“DO YOU WANT TO SEARCH ME?” asked the blond woman to the man who was convinced she could not speak to the dead. Mina, for that was her real name, was trapped in a wooden cabinet in the center of the room. It was warm, and her bobbed hair was clinging in strands to her forehead. The man—the magician—had put her there, boxed up like some oversize child’s toy. Four other dour men were present, along with a secretary. The others were circled around Mina, in chairs, listening. Her question sounded like a dare. Mina then stretched her neck back, her face almost glowing in its whiteness. Her pale arms draped like willow branches out of rough-cut holes in the sides of the box. She looked at the magician with the slight curl of a smile, waiting for his answer.
“No,” he said eventually, in a voice that stopped and started like a kind of music. “Never mind. Let it go.” He waved his hand off through the air as if dismissing an insect. “I am not a physician,” he said.
The magician was somewhere on the edge of fifty, with silver in his eyes and at the temples of his black, curly hair. He was stocky and in shirtsleeves. He sat down on the edge of his chair and slipped his left hand into Mina’s. Her hand was soft; his was large and muscular, with scars that wound like cords around his wrists. His face still looked like the photographs, but also different. Older, for sure, but also more animated. His face was far more alive than the dots of ink in the newspaper that told stories of his daredevil escapes. He was searching and studying as if he were trying to see something.
The men joined hands in their ragged circle around the woman in the box. They had come to Boston months ago on behalf of Scientific American to test the powers of Mina, known in the press as Margery the Medium, to protect her identity and that of her husband, Dr. Le Roi Crandon. At stake was a hefty $2,500 prize. But the real reward would be the stamp of approval that her powers were indeed real. It would be proof of a life beyond death itself, of a door beyond our common inescapable future. It would be proof that the dead could speak again.
Mina closed her eyes. Even in the low light, they could all see the top of her green silk kimono as it crept up the hollow of her neck. It was the kind one would purchase at Jordan Marsh. Underneath the robe, she wore nothing. The other men in the room—scientists and doctors—were very much aware of this. The lights were then fully dimmed, and the minutes began by the secretary, Miss McManama, who walked behind a thin wall. This was not the kind of sleepy morning darkness chipped away at by birds but the kind of midnight that lay out somewhere in the deep woods. The kind found under a cold lake.
A whistle, low and piercing, sounded out from somewhere. The magician cocked his head. The sound then turned, in the air, and became something more like a deep growl. It came from a hole in the middle of the circle.
“Walter,” said the voice. It was Mina’s brother, who had been in a terrible railroad accident many years earlier. He’d died in 1911. He was speaking.
The magician tried to see Mina’s features, but he could not manage with his eyes against the dark. He tried to reach out through his fingers and feet to feel if she was moving, or at least strengthening a tendon somewhere. He thought he felt some part of her move. Almost like a snake. “Houdini,” said Walter, in a deep, resonant voice. The magician focused his blinded eyes on Mina even further, while also trying his best to listen. The ghost—if that is what it was—was speaking to him.
“You are very clever indeed,” scolded Walter. “But it won’t work.” His voice hung there, almost swinging in its slight echo. “I suppose it was an accident those things were left in the cabinet?” he asked.”
What was left in the cabinet?” snapped Houdini. He felt the other men jolt in their seats. He had no time for regulations.
Walter laughed calmly, a low and eerie sound.
“Pure accident, was it? You were not here…but your assistant was.”
“What was it?” asked Houdini. The cabinet that Mina was locked up in was of his own design. He had constructed it with the help of his assistant, Jim Collins. The cabinet was meant to safeguard against her using tricks to fake the séance. If anything had been found in the cabinet, it would indicate conspiracy. He would be accused of abetting her. Or even worse, framing her.
Walter laughed again.
“A ruler is in the cabinet,” he said. “It is in a box under a pillow at the medium’s feet. You put it there to throw suspicion on my sister.”
Houdini’s thoughts raced. A portable ruler could easily be extended to ply Mina’s trickery, and it could have been smuggled into the box without any of them knowing. He looked over at Mina. She was still a shadow, but Houdini’s eyes had grown more accustomed to the dark by now. He fixed his eyes upon her. Her neck muscles were straining. If only he could see all of her.
“I didn’t—” he started, but was cut off.
There was a moaning sound.
They could all feel Mina stiffen through the circuit of their held hands. Houdini could barely see her head drift back, her eyes closed. She seemed to calm down again before starting to tremble slightly.
“Walter has taken control of her!” someone in the circle whispered.
Just as quickly, Mina’s head straightened, and her eyes snapped open. Houdini could barely see her pupils; they were nothing more than circles in the dark. They were focused on the center of the room.
She turned to look at him.
“Houdini,” she said softly. It was more her voice than Walter’s now. “What did you do that for, Houdini?”
Walter spoke next in a thundering roar.
“You goddamned son of a bitch! The idea of your putting up a plant like that on a girl!”
The other men froze in fear.
“You won’t live forever, Houdini. You’ve got to die!”
Walter drew in a breath.
“I put a curse on you now that will follow you every day for the rest of your short life! Now you get the hell out of here and don’t you ever come back!”
It was very hard to see what Houdini was doing at that moment. He was not a creature of the dark, but he was at home in the invisible. Some in the room felt he was listening intently. Or was he smiling? Dr. Comstock spoke up to defend him. He told Walter that the ruler could have been left there by workmen. It must have affected the spirit—or Houdini—because Walter wanted to take some of it back.
“Please cut all the nasty words out of the record,” said Walter, “but leave all the rest.”
When the séance was over and the lights brought up, Mina Crandon was slumped over and covered in glistening sweat, spent by the ordeal. Houdini immediately turned toward Miss McManama with a wild look in his eye.
“I want that part of the record,” he said. “Leave it in.”
Alone in his hotel room, Houdini took out stationery from the desk and started to write a letter. It was two o’clock in the morning, and the streets outside his window were quiet. The pen scratched across the paper.
Darling, Everytime I write Aug., I start Jan., maybe it’s because of your birth month. A very lucky and happy month for me. Have just wired you. . . . “Walter” begged my pardon for calling me names and wanted it crossed out of the record. But it remains as is.
All your sweetheart, Houdini
Houdini put the letter in the telegram envelope and sealed it shut. He turned it over and addressed it to Mrs. Beatrice Houdini, 278 West 113 Street, New York City. He marked it Special Delivery and Run Postman Run. Then he turned off the light.
Lincoln’s Ghost. Copyright © 2025 by Brad Ricca. All rights reserved.
BRAD RICCA earned his Ph.D. in English from Case Western Reserve University where he currently teaches. The author of Super Boys, he has spoken on comics at various schools and museums, and he has been interviewed about comics topics by The New York Daily News, The Wall Street Journal, and All Things Considered on NPR. His film Last Son won a 2010 Silver Ace Award at the Las Vegas International Film Festival. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio.