Followup
An article by Teller, "A memory of the nineteen-nineties" ("Being a faithful account of the events of the designated day, when the man who had disappeared was expected briefly to return"), was published in the November 1997 The Atlantic Monthly. It describes what happened to the people who actually went to the museum on the designated afternoon to see if Soames showed up; at 2:10 PM, a person meeting Soames' description appears, and begins searching through the catalogue and various biographical dictionaries. A few dozen minutes later, he slips out of sight of the watching Teller and audience, and disappears.
In an October 2012 Esquire article, writer Chris Jones implied that Teller staged this event himself, although the magician had "never confessed it."
Read more about this topic: Enoch Soames