In the evening Houdini, accompanied by an Express representative, again
walked into the bridewell to settle a point which had been raised since
his feat in the afternoon.
Was the door which had been fastened against him single, double, or
triple locked?
The matter could easily be settled. Houdini would just do the trick
again. Only this time he would do it with his clothes on, as time was
pressing.
Liverpool's bridewell is as an unsightly a place as a bridewell can be.
No one would mistake it for a spa hotel or a convalescent home.
Beneath a dark arch you pass, and in the great door which you find
opposite is a little window which is unlocked when you knock, and
through which you are viewed before you are permitted even to stand
upon the threshold.
Houdini and his companion were admitted.
"More lock-breaking?
"Yes; I am ready for more--as many as you like."
Accompanied by a gaoler, Houdini and the =Express= representative
ascended a flight of stone steps and passed along dimly lighted
corridors, whose atmosphere seemed to reek with crime and mystery.
Passing through a gate, a row of cells was reached, upon any one of
which Houdini might operate.
Here was one marked with a strange device. Houdini would try this one.
It was a felon's cell--stronger than some of the others, though it
could not have been darker or more forbidding.
Houdini entered. He was backed in by the =Express= representative.
He was inside, safe and sound.