To the Editors:
As an amateur magician of long standing, I was naturally interested in Daniel Mark Epstein’s “The Case of Houdini” (October, 1986). His attempt to refute a showman who insisted that magicians always use natural means will convince no magicians because Mr. Epstein’s arguments ignore the best scholarship on magic.

It is true that Houdini left no explanation of his escape from the Siberian Transport Cell, but Milbourne Christopher, a distinguished magician and scholar of magic, has pointed out that “it is likely that he stretched his arm through the barred window until he could reach the lock and opened it with a pick.” (Houdini: The Untold Story, p. 74.) It is not true that “no one has the slightest notion” how Houdini did his Chinese Water Torture Cell illusion. Mr. Epstein seeks to make something out of the fact that Hardeen, who inherited the equipment from his brother, never got in it. But as Christopher points out: “Not that he didn’t know the secret; he was too tall to fit inside it” (p. 265). Moreover, Houdini went to court to stop two German entertainers from copying his illusion, as they had done.

Houdini’s vanishing of an elephant did baffle some magicians (but not all); even so, there’s no mystery about its origin. He purchased the rights to it from the inventor Charles Morritt, who had “vanished” a donkey (p. 153). Mr. Epstein also attempts to find something supernatural about the three-second timing of the