Teenagers William and Ira Davenport launched from their hometown of Buffalo, New York to begin the most successful stage careers in the whole history of Spiritualism. The brothers had developed a riotess and noisy special effect coming from inside a medium's cabinet - an elaborate wooden stage prop of their own design. It was seven feet high and six feet long, with three doors in front that opened to provide a full view of the inside. Within this strange box, the Davenports sat facing each other, while members of the audience tied them up with ropes. On a bench in the middle, where they could not be reached, lay a collection of musical instruments. With great fanfare, as the ropes were tightly tied about their bodies and the three doors closed, the gaslights would grow dim. All of a sudden, tamborines, guitars and a horn section would create a cacophany. Afterwards, the doors opened to show the Davenports still securely bound. Sherlock Holmes's creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote, "probably the greatest mediums of their kind that the world has ever seen." Harry Houdini, however, reported that he had facts "more than sufficient to disprove their having, or even claiming, spiritualistic power"? This was another of those public arguments between these two psychic investigators, they were to clash again over the famous medium from Boston, Margery Crandon.