By 1928, Margery had added yet another effect to her repertoire, one that promised to excite even more speculation. In recent séances, Walter had hinted that it might be possible for him to leave behind a fingerprint. On a visit to her dentist, Dr. Frederick Caldwell, Margery asked if the hot wax used to take dental impressions might also be used to obtain Walter’s fingerprint. Caldwell demonstrated how well the wax preserved his thumbprint and gave Margery his sample print and all the necessary materials to make new ones.

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That very night, Walter left a thumbprint in the wax. When a so-called fingerprint expert used by the Crandons said the print matched one taken from an old razor that once belonged to Walter Stinson, Margery appeared to have confounded the skeptics. Yet when psychic researcher E.E. Dudley set out to compare Walter’s wax print with those of people in the Crandon circle, he made a surprising discovery: Walter’s thumbprint was identical in every way to that of Margery’s dentist, Dr. Caldwell. Someone had apparently used the sample thumbprint Dr. Caldwell had made for Margery to create a metal die-stamp suitable for making impressions in wax. The ax had finally fallen. Even many devoted adherents backed away from their earlier endorsements. Malcolm Bird, once her staunchest defender, admitted that at times he had been guilty of elaborations and half-truths. The scientific community let it be known that Margery’s séances no longer held any interest.

The medium’s decline was rapid and tragic. With the death of Dr. Crandon in 1939, Mina grew melancholy and depressed and turned to alcohol for consolation. She began to look older than her years; one visitor described her as “an overdressed, dumpy little woman.” She seemed to have difficulty controlling her emotions. During one séance the medium grew so distraught that she climbed to the roof of the Lime Street house and threatened to throw herself off.

Mina Crandon died at the age of 54 in 1941. In the end she had been worn down not so much by the assaults of adversaries like Houdini, but by the entreaties of her supporters, who continually demanded new and better miracles from her. As Eileen Garrett, a fellow medium, observed, “Margery’s best friends were her worst enemies.”

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