The counterpart to the master interpreter is the magician. In Conan Doyle's world he is both the closest friend and the greatest enemy. No one matches him for his artful realism and none is more dangerous when it comes to exposure, for the magician works consciously and in a highly controlled manner with fakes. He mounts a false-bottom world of appearances, which for this very reason unfolds its special magic. We are trapped in the world of magic tricks and stunts, disappearance and resurrection, magical transformation. Bodies are split in two and put together again, that which is fixed suddenly flies off in the form of a bird, and the thoughts of the audience can be read by the magician from the stage. Houdini's legendary escape acts so captured his audience that he had to repeat them for the silver screen. In more than one film Houdini performed them and enchanted his audience in other ways. If a magician stands upon the stage, we follow spellbound the play of appearances and are happy to be fooled by them. The same holds true for The Lost World, the master interpreter Sherlock Holmes and the photographic images that denote the world. Therefore it is no wonder that in Conan Doyle and Houdini we have two grandmasters of illusion who henceforth could not be separated from one another – in good times and in bad. First the good times: both report enthusiastically on their first meeting, celebrating their friendship in private and in public, and writing countless letters. Photographs show them together on the thresholds of both their houses, another shows the two of them together with their wives in a car in Denver (Figures D2.1–D2.3). Yet the bad times soon followed: despite Conan Doyle's assessment that Houdini had special powers as a medium and paranormal abilities, Houdini wanted nothing to do with his crusade for spiritualism.