The Link by Richard Matheson

CLOSE UP on Houdini as his look of smug assurance vanishes.
    A bitter argument ensuing later—Houdini and the committee members: Professor William McDougall, Dr. Daniel Frost Comstock, Dr. Prince, Hereward Carrington and Malcolm Bird, the committee’s secretary and the special target of Houdini’s ire.
    “It is immaterial to me that the bell rang!” he rages, putting down the incident to “obvious fraud”. When Bird points out that the conditions in the séance room—even to the construction of the cabinet—were Houdini’s own, the splenetic magician says that the conditions were
not
his and further accuses the secretary of being “untrustworthy” and “forbids” him from being present in the séance room any longer.
    Bird, infuriated and insulted, resigns as secretary, storming from the room.
    Houdini smiles. “Now we will have an
honest
test,” he says.
    The following night. Mina Crandon, attired in dressing gown, silk stockings and slippers, is helped into the cabinet by her husband. Houdini carefully shuts and locks the cabinet. Tonight, he says, Dr. Crandon will not hold his wife’s right hand, Professor McDougall will.
    There is a brief discussion of this until Dr. Crandon accedes to Houdini’s demand. Dr. Prince will, as usual, hold the medium’s left hand.
    Before the lights are extinguished, Houdini says he wants to make one final check on the cabinet, unlocks and opens it and looks inside, aided by his assistant.
    Apparently satisfied, he re-locks the cabinet, the sitters take their places and the lights are put out.
    Margery’s “control”, Walter (ostensibly her deceased brother), comes through immediately. His voice is furious as he accuses Houdini of having hidden a collapsible ruler under the cushion beneath the medium’s feet. He refuses to continue with the sitting and the lights are turned on, the cabinet unlocked and opened.
    Under the foot cushion, the collapsible ruler is found.
    The room erupts with angry voices, fading as Robert’s voice comes in.
    “Houdini accused Mrs. Crandon of having concealed the ruler. Mrs. Crandon and her husband countered that the cabinet had been completely checked by the magician and his assistant before the séance and no ruler found, accusing Houdini of placing the ruler in the cabinet just prior to the sitting in order to discredit Mrs. Crandon.”
    BACK TO Robert. “The mystery was never resolved,” he says. He hesitates, then stands and searches through his bookshelves, coming down with a book. Opening it, he finds an entry and dictates again.
    “Interestingly enough,” he says, “although Houdini always stated that he’d never witnessed a single genuine psychic manifestation in his life, he once told Hereward Carrington that during an engagement in Berlin—”
    We see Houdini walking onto stage to begin his show.
    As he moves, his eyes are drawn to the opposite wing and he reacts in shock as he sees his mother, wearing a shawl over her head, smiling at him.
    He is torn between his duty to the audience and his stunned reaction at the sight of his mother. He says a few words to the audience, then looks back toward his mother.
    She is gone.
    His expression blank, Houdini begins to perform.
    “At the very moment Houdini saw his mother,” says Robert’s voice, “she was dying in New York.”
    Robert starts as the telephone rings. It is Cathy inviting him to ESPA the next day. They have found a highly interesting “subject” in the form of a nightclub entertainer named Teddie Berger. Did Robert happen to see the item in the newspapers—it was on late night t-v news programs as well—about a clairvoyant vision during his act saving the lives of two children and their babysitter from a burning house many miles away?
    “I think I did,” says Robert.
    He hesitates a moment then apologizes for his “over-reaction” that afternoon; if he had her telephone number he would have called to say he was sorry.
    Cathy counters with her own