“I have had to handle you a little roughly in the _Oakland Tribune_ because they send me a long screed under quotation marks, so it is surely accurate. It is so full of errors that I don’t know where to begin. I can’t imagine why you say such wild things which have no basis in fact at all. I put the Thompsons down as humbugs. I never heard of my son or brother through the Thomas brothers. They were never exposed. I never said that Masked Medium was genuine. I wish you would refer to me before publishing such injurious stuff which I have to utterly contradict. I would always tell you the exact facts as I have done with the Zancigs. “Yours sincerely, “A. Conan Doyle.” “I hate sparring with a friend in public, but what can I do when you say things which are not correct, and which I have to contradict or else they go by default. It is the same with all this ridiculous stuff of Rinn’s. Unless I disprove it, people imagine it is true. “A. C. D.” At the written invitation of Sir Arthur and Lady Doyle Mrs. Houdini and I visited them while they were stopping at the Ambassador Hotel in Atlantic City. One day as Sir Arthur, Mrs. Houdini and I were sitting on the sand skylarking with the children Sir Arthur excused himself saying that he was going to have his usual afternoon nap. He left us but returned in a short time and said “Houdini, if agreeable, Lady Doyle will give you a special seance, as she has a feeling that she might have a message come through. At any rate, she is willing to try,” and turning to Mrs. Houdini he said, “we would like to be alone. You do not mind if we make the experiment without you.” Smilingly, my good little wife said, “Certainly not, go right ahead, Sir Arthur; I will leave Houdini in your charge and I know that he will be willing to go to the seance.” Doyle said, “You understand, Mrs. Houdini, that this will be a test to see whether we can make any Spirit come through for Houdini, and conditions may prove better if no other force is present.” Before leaving with Sir Arthur, Mrs. Houdini cued me. We did a second sight or mental performance years ago and still use a system or code whereby we can speak to each other in the presence of others, even though to all outward appearances we are merely talking, pointing or doing the most innocent looking things, but which have different meanings to us.