Carter Beats the Devil
For my assistant,
the mysterious Miss Alice
C
URRAN
T
HEATRE
“THE GOLDEN DOME BY THE GOLDEN GATE”
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
Thursday, August 2nd, 1923, at 8 o’clock p.m.
MUST END TONIGHT COME SEE TONIGHT WILL END TONIGHT
CARTER
THE GREAT
—AND HIS FULL COMPANY—
returning from a triumphant tour to the far reaches of the globe
in three acts of mayhem, magic & mystery
TO-NIGHT’S PROGRAMME
OVERTURE
ACT I:
METAMORPHOSIS
A cascade of thrilling illusions: Metempsychosis, Fly-to, Gone!, the Enchanted Cottage, a Night in Old China, and the Sacred Mystery of the Elephant.
~interval~
ACT II:
AN INQUIRY INTO THE SPIRIT WORLD
A baffling séance in which
MADAME ZORAH KNOWS ALL, SEES ALL, TELLS ALL
. Telepathy, clairvoyance, spirit manifestations, thought transference. Before the curtain rises, please submit your questions to Madame Zorah in writing, including your full name so that she may better bring to bear the force of her psychic powers.
~interval~
ACT III:
CARTER BEATS THE DEVIL
The management requests that, due to the intensified nature of the performance, no patron reveal details of Act III, “Carter Beats the Devil.”
~curtain~
ORCHESTRA
$8.00 /
CIRCLE
$6.00 /
PIT
$5.00 / 1
ST GALLERY
$3.50 / 2
ND GALLERY
$2.50.
NO STANDING ROOM TICKETS. NO REFUNDS. NO SEATING OF LATE ARRIVALS.
“Puisque toutes les créatures sont au fond des frères, il faut traiter vos bêtes comme vous traitez vos amis.”
Charles Carter, S.A.M. #532, is represented by Carter and Company,
San Francisco
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN
On Friday, August third, 1923, the morning after President Harding’s death, reporters followed the widow, the Vice President, and Charles Carter, the magician. At first, Carter made the pronouncements he thought necessary: “A fine man, to be sorely missed,” and “it throws the country into a great crisis from which we shall all pull through together, showing the strong stuff of which we Americans are made.” When pressed, he confirmed some details of his performance the night before, which had been the President’s last public appearance, but as per his proviso that details of his third act never be revealed, he made no comment on the show’s bizarre finale.
Because the coroner’s office could not explain exactly how the President had died, and rumors were already starting, the men from Hearst wanted quite desperately to confirm what happened in the finale, when Carter beat the Devil.
That afternoon, a reporter disguised himself as a delivery man and interrupted Carter’s close-up practice; the magician’s more sardonic tendencies, unfortunately, came out. “At the time the President met his maker, I was in a straitjacket, upside-down over a steaming pit of carbolic acid. In response to your as-yet-unasked query, yes, I do have an alibi.”
He was almost immediately to regret his impatience. The next day over breakfast he saw the headline in the
Examiner:
“Carter the Great Denies Role in Harding Death.” Below was an article including, for the first
time, an eyewitness first-person narrative from an anonymous audience member who all too helpfully described the entire show,
including
the third act. He could not confirm whether, in fact, President Harding had survived until the final curtain. After a breathless account of what Carter had done to the President, the editors reflected on Lincoln’s assassination at Ford’s Theater fifty-eight years beforehand, then made a pallid call for restraint, for letting the wheels of justice prevail.
Carter, a sober man, knew he might be lynched. At once, he ordered his servants to pack his steamer trunks for a six months’ voyage. He booked a train from San Francisco to Los Angeles, then transit on the
Hercules,
an ocean liner bound from Los Angeles to Athens. He instructed his press agent to tell all callers that he was seeking inspiration from the priestess at Delphi, and would return at Christmastime.
Carter was chauffeured from his Pacific Heights mansion to the train station downtown, where a crowd of photographers jostled each other to shoot pictures of him. As he boarded the Los Angeles–bound train, he made no comment other than to turn up the collar of his fur-lined coat, which he hardly needed in the August heat.
. . .
By the time the train arrived in Los Angeles, Secret Service agents were posted at all exits. They had just received authorization to detain Mr. Charles Carter. But this posed an unexpected challenge. Though they saw several pieces of Carter’s luggage leaving the train, Carter himself was nowhere to be found. His servants were halted, and his bags opened and searched right on the platform, but law enforcement concluded that Carter had slipped away.
Passengers boarding the
Hercules
were given the professional bugeye by agents who’d received copies, by teletype transmission, of Carter’s publicity photograph. Since these images featured him in a silk floral turban, with devils drawn onto his shoulders, and his face thrown into moodily orchestrated shadows, they also received careful descriptions of what Charles Carter actually looked like: thirty-five years old, black hair, blue eyes, Roman nose, pale, almost delicate skin, and a slender build that allowed, it was said, exceptionally agile movement. Informants could not say for certain whether Carter was the type of magician who was a master of disguise; San Francisco’s law enforcement was of the opinion that he was not. He was, they thought, the type who specialized in dematerialization. This did not set the agents’ minds at ease, and when every passenger had been examined, they were no closer to catching their man than they had been on the train. He
had not stowed away with the crew, nor with the luggage—both had been examined minutely.
Finally, the agents concluded he had been scared off by the attention. The
Hercules
was allowed to sail, and as soon as it cleared the breakwater, the harbormaster saw through his binoculars the unmistakable form of Charles Carter, in bowler hat and chinchilla coat, sipping champagne and waving adieu from the aft deck.
Authorities on board and at every port along the way were alerted to Carter’s presence, but even the most optimistic federal agent suspected the magician would never be found.
. . .
This was hardly the Secret Service’s first disaster, only the most recent. Morale among all government bodies had plummeted during the twenty-nine months of the Harding administration. As one scandal followed another, it became apparent that in stark contrast to President Wilson, Harding tolerated corruption. In short, the whole government to a man realized that only bastards got ahead.
For Agent Jack Griffin, this philosophy was no adjustment whatsoever.
On the evening of Carter’s performance for President Harding, Griffin had been told to report to the Curran Theatre. Though his duties—“analyze local grounds for all malicious forces”—sounded important, he knew he was superfluous. The Curran was undoubtedly secure: magicians took extraordinary precautions against competitors’ stealing their secrets. Furthermore, a follow-up detail would double-check the entrances, exits, and the President’s seats. Nonetheless, Griffin would make a thorough report; after a twenty-year cycle of probations and remedial duties, he remained determined to show he couldn’t be broken by lame assignments.
The Curran, a monstrous and drafty theatre, had just been refurbished to accommodate pageants, top-flight entertainments, and prestigious motion pictures. The orchestra pit had been expanded to seat one hundred musicians and a projection room had been added in the back balcony. The old Victorian motifs—a ceiling mural of pre-Raphaelite seraphim, for instance—had been co-joined with Egyptian themes. The walls now rippled with hieroglyphs and the apron of the stage was flanked by huge plaster sphinxes whose eyes glowed in the dark.
Since Harding was coming to San Francisco as a stop on his Voyage of
Understanding, an effort to refocus his tired administration, he would likely come onstage during the evening, perhaps even volunteer in one of Carter’s illusions. Thus Griffin was to determine which act might be most dignified for the President.
He came to the Curran in the late afternoon, while workmen were testing filaments and maneuvering black draperies into their places. He interviewed Carter’s chief effects builder, a stooped old man named Ledocq, a Belgian who wore both a belt and suspenders, and who frequently scratched just above his ear, threatening to dislodge his yarmulke. Griffin wrote in his notes “Jew.”
Ledocq wouldn’t let Griffin examine any of the illusions onstage, but he described the effects in detail: the show opened with “Metempsychosis,” in which a suit of armor came to life and chased one of Carter’s hapless assistants around the stage. (As this seemed like tomfoolery to him, Griffin noted that Harding should probably not participate in this.) “The Enchanted Cottage” was a series of quick changes, dematerializations, and reappearances culminating in “A Night in Old China,” an enthralling display of fire-juggling, fire-eating, and fireworks. (Griffin wrote “sounds dangerous—doubtful” in his notes.) Next, Carter placed a subject, usually an attractive young woman whom he selected from the audience, into an ordinary wooden chair, which rose above the stage without apparent assistance. He asked the subject humorous questions, keeping the audience enthralled while he pulled out a pistol, loaded it, and carefully shot the woman point-blank—the chair fell to the ground, but the subject disappeared into the ether. (“Absolutely not!” Griffin wrote, underlining this notation.)
After the intermission was a levitation, psychical mind reading, and prediction routine with Carter’s associate, Madame Zorah. (“Possible,” Griffin wrote, “but won’t it hurt Px Harding’s credibility?”) He asked, “What else is there?”
Ledocq scratched above his ear and squinted at Griffin. “Well, there’s not a lot left then. There’s the Vanishing Elephant trick.”
“Would the President be in danger from the elephant?”
“Mmmm. No.” Ledocq smiled. “But I can’t imagine a Republican being happy making an elephant disappear.”
Griffin crossed out the Vanishing Elephant. “Isn’t there a third act?”
“There is. There is. It’s hard to explain.”
“To tell you the truth,” Griffin sighed, “I don’t really care about every detail of every trick. Should the President be involved?”
Ledocq laughed, a dry cackle. “Believe me, you don’t want your boss anywhere near the stage when Carter beats the Devil.”
. . .
An hour later, at the Palace Hotel, Griffin produced his full report, typing it on his Remington portable and inking in the places where the keys hadn’t come down hard enough to make duplicates. He went to the Mint to turn it in, and returned to his room. Twice, he picked up the phone and asked the operator if there were any calls for him. There weren’t.
Just before the performance that night, the Bureau Chief met in the lobby with eighteen agents, including Griffin, to pass out programs and set up a duty roster for the evening. The Chief announced that the President would indeed go onstage—as a volunteer in the third act. When Griffin objected, he was told—lectured, actually, for the senior agents all knew about Griffin—that there would be no arguments. The President and Carter had met and concluded that the most effective use of the President’s time would be in a trick called—Griffin mouthed the words as they were announced—“Carter Beats the Devil.”
Griffin, still objecting, was dismissed, and was sent to stand at the back of the theatre, where he cursed under his breath until the lights dimmed, when he began to make small, coarse gestures toward the Bureau Chief and the other Kentucky insiders, who sat in the eight-dollar seats.
The curtains opened to a spectacularly cluttered set meant to represent Carter the Great’s study. A lackey bemoaned the audience’s presence. “Eight o’clock already, the show is starting, and the master’s room isn’t ready yet. He’ll have my hide for sure.”