THE
LARRY
KING
INTERVIEW
November 5, 2003

BLAINE: Yes.

BLAINE: Yes.

KING: A hundred thousand dollars is hidden somewhere, right?

BLAINE: Yes.

KING: And I understand you’re going to give one clue tonight.

BLAINE: Yes.

KING: Free.

BLAINE: All the clues for this have been cryptography, which are really difficult, nobody broke it. So I’m going to give a clue that’s very simple. It’s one sentence.

KING: It’s in the United States?

BLAINE: Uh-huh. And this is the first clue that I’m giving that’s simple, that has nothing to do with... *

KING: And this is cash? The person will find cash?

BLAINE: Well, they’ll find a ball** and they’ll find my phone number. Then they’ll call me, and then the book publishers have a check for $100,000 that they’ll give.

KING: The clue is?

BLAINE: The clue is, if my tattoo is fearless, then climb ten weeks to find the route.

* King interrupted David from saying “cryptography.”

** To be precise, it is a solid gold orb imprinted with the words: Magic, Enchantment, Conjure, Charm, Astonish, Spirit, Prestige, Endure, Legerdemain. The orb is hidden inside a mock hollow stone which also contains DB’s phone number.

November 4, 2003, 8 PM, DB telephones me with a curious request. He’s going to be on The Larry King Show — the very next day! — and he wants me to write out a brand new clue, a single sentence, which would be sufficient to solve the $100,000 Challenge all by itself, no book required.

(Kit Williams, author of Masquerade, had offered a post-publication clue in The London Times. Ironically, most found this clue to be indecipherable, even after knowing the book’s solution.)

To differentiate it from the Book Challenge, I wanted this new clue (1) to appear maddeningly straightforward, (2) to reference the solution in a similar manner as the book, (3) to connect the book to DB’s Fearless DVD, and (4) to require the use of the Internet to research the location.

Back in September 2002, when we first surveyed the Rick Rubin house as a possible location, DB strolled up to the address sign and held his arm next to it with a “Hey, Cliff, look at this.”

The street address 2451 and his tattoo 174517 both contained the numbers 451.

This became an essential component of the Official Forty-One-Clue Solution, using NUMBERED ARM, REMOVE SEVENS, DOUBLE THE FIRST to convert 174517 1451 2451.

The Rick Rubin house was also the house shown in the Fearless DVD where DB announces that “Houdini once stayed there” and that he is “training for his latest illusion” (which was Vertigo).

As seen on a television screen, the 2451 appears to float over the stone wall with an uncanny iridescence, though in person, it is an unremarkable little wooden sign painted with flat white paint.

In addition, an Easter Egg on the Fearless DVD reveals DB prancing on the roof of the house.

IF MY TATTOO IS FEARLESS, THEN CLIMB TEN WEEKS TO FIND THE ROUTE.

The first part of the riddle leads you to the house.

IF MY TATTOO IS FEARLESS — In a photo at the back of the book, DB sports an arm tattoo reading 174517. The Fearless DVD boasts a clear 2451 street address. Yes, the 451 similarity, by itself, is skating on pretty thin ice.

However, since the DVD connects Houdini to the house, if you do a search for “Houdini House” on the Internet, you will quickly find Walker Estate which tells “during the Houdini’s frequent touring to the west coast, they befriended Dr. Walker who owned a large estate at 2398-2400 Laurel Canyon Blvd. in Hollywood, California.” Further searching will reveal that the Rick Rubin estate is the next property to the north at 2451.

The second part of the riddle leads you to the treasure.

THEN CLIMB TEN WEEKS — The estate is built into the hillside where there are many stairways to climb. The number 70 can be derived from 10 weeks X 7 days. There is only one set of stairs that climbs upward for 70 steps.

TO FIND THE ROUTE — Root is a homophone of route, and directly across from the 70th step is a single tree and under its main root is the prize. (See the big “W” tree.)

Intrigue at the Seventieth Step!

Clearly, somebody was there before the winner arrived, perhaps even the same day*. They had determined the correct street address and had deduced the 70th step. Ignoring the route/root connection, however, they then proceeded to tear down the rock wall to the right and pile the stones in the flower bed to the left, ironically only a few feet away from the actual location of the treasure.

*The winner told me that the soil was still moist and fresh, not sun-baked as would be expected in sunny Southern California.

Why attack the wall? In the short story, The Treasure of Abbot Thomas, the treasure, a seven-eyed cross, was buried inside the rock wall of a well. That’s as good an explanation as any.