单项选择题

We all know that a magician does not really depend on "magic" to perform his tricks. He depends on his ability to act at great speed. However, this does not prevent us from enjoying watching a magician produce rabbits from a hat, swallow countless eggs, or saw his wife in two.
Probably the greatest magician of all time was Harry Houdini who died in 1926. His real name was Ehrich Weiss. He adopted the name "Houdini" after reading a book written by the famous magician called Robert Houdin.
Houdini mastered the art of escaping. He could free himself from the tightest knots or the most complicated locks. Although no one really knows how he did this, there is no doubt that he had made a close study of every type of lock ever invented. He would carry a small steel needle-like tool strapped to his leg and he used this in place of a key.
Houdini once asked the Chicago police to lock him in prison. They bound him up, but he freed himself in an instant. The police accused him of having used a tool and locked him up again. This time he wore no clothes and there were chains round his neck, waist, wrists, and legs; but he again escaped in a few minutes.
Houdini had probably hidden his "needle" in a waxlike substance and dropped it on the floor in the passage. As he went past, he stepped on it so that it stuck to the bottom of his foot.
His most famous escape, however, was altogether astonishing. He was heavily chained up and enclosed in an empty wooden chest, the lid of which was nailed down. The chest was dropped into the sea in New York harbour. In one minute, Houdini had swum to the surface. When the chest was brought up, it was opened and the chains were found inside.

After he was chained up in a Chicago prison, Houdini escaped by ().

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