EVERY MOVE IS WATCHED
The strait-jacket was taken out of the satchel. The handcuff king examined it carefully, while a group of persons looked on. Not a move he made was lost. He dropped the piece of canvas and leather carelessly, smiled again, and said:
"Very good. Are we ready?"
It was almost 12.30 o'clock. Houdini glanced out the window, and again his characteristic, quiet smile came to his face as he saw Wood street and Liberty avenue congested from wall to wall with closely packed, restless humanity.
Then a white-clad attendant on each side, he went downstairs to the street to be bound.
A suppressed shout came from the crowd as he appeared in the doorway of The Sun building. It increased in volume as with the attendants and two members of "The Sun" at 12 o'clock. R. D. Polling wagon that had been pulled up on the pavement, and that was serving as a stage.
Above him, like a gallows, a single beam projected from a window at the top story of the building, and a rope swung clear, coiling in sinister fashion at his feet.
Houdini had removed the outer clothing from the upper part of his body.
"Ready," he said.