The Mirror Handcuff Challenge escape attempt lasted nearly an hour. Some believe that Houdini's wife slipped him the keys to the handcuffs when she appeared onstage and kissed him.

The Chinese Water Torture Cell was Houdini's most famous escape.

In Houdin, "The Untold Story" I think is the best explination. Houdini would never have chanced getting in them without a sure fire method of escape. If this were noy a set up Bess could have never got her hands on the keys. If it took a Brittish lockmith five years to make them he would have never been without those keys. Believe me I won't take away anything from Houdini but this was most likely a set up.
Houdinis own rule was that all handcuffs had to be in good working order and the key must open the cuffs and or lock depending what model.
So we would have to believe that on the Mirror cuff challenge where Houdini was not allowed to see the key work that Houdini put aside his own rule.
This is with a cuff he never saw before, yet on any other key he would demand to see the key work even if he broke out of that syle a thousand times before.