The passive voice makes the graf even more confusing. Who supposedly avoided the autopsy? The decision would have been up to Bess or whoever was empowered to make decisions on her behalf. But she had no incentive to conceal that the death was accidental. Quite the opposite.

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But how could the death be accidental AND not from medical malpractice AND concealed by not doing an autopsy?

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A death from a punch would be death at the hands of another and arguably a homicide. Or maybe it's an accident if this were just a stage stunt gone wrong. Bess would presumably have gotten her double indemnity either way.

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Not doing an autopsy let the inference stand that the death was caused by someone who punched Houdini in the stomach because he thought the magician could absorb any blow without harm. (Something he did in his stage act, but may not have been ready to do at a moment's notice.)

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The reviewer claims that someone avoided an autopsy to conceal that the death was accidental (rather than from medical malpractice). What does that mean?

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