Read As if by Magic for Free Online

identical brown box to the one Jessica has opened.
    ‘This was left on Deansgate tram platform this morning,’ the officer said. ‘One of our off-duty lot was catching a tram when he saw it already opened. He dropped it in as lost property. We all thought he was crackers given what’s in it.’
    Jessica thought he was going to add: “But you know the type”, although he tailed off. As it was, it was lucky the officer who dropped it off was “the type” to hand everything in and not just bin it. He was also the type who didn’t resort to shutting down transport networks for the sake of a box, which immediately elevated whoever it was in Jessica’s view.
    The fact Jessica and Dave had skipped the training day was now something they could not hide from their superiors. Sooner or later, it would have been noticed anyway but, as they were signed off from duty for the three-day weekend, Jessica used one of her favours in order to keep investigating the mystery of the boxes. If it hadn’t been for them being off, things would have just been left. There had been a delay in checking whether the watch had been registered to anyone, so they didn’t know if it was stolen, and, as such, no actual crime had been committed.
    Jessica peered into the box and, as with the original, removed a smaller one. Inside that was a third box containing a red plastic cup. The officer told them it had already been handled by numerous people. As she sat down, Jessica put the cup on the table.
    ‘Hugo?’ Jessica said.
    After picking it up, Hugo turned it upside down with a grin, sliding it along the table. ‘This is what we might use to make things disappear and reappear,’ he said, reaching into an inside pocket and taking out two similar cups, one blue, one yellow, and putting them on the table. He sat opposite Jessica with all three cups in a row.
    ‘Has anyone got a ping pong ball?’ he asked.
    Unsurprisingly, neither of them did, although the other officer’s raised eyebrows reminded Jessica that she was becoming dangerously desensitised to questions such as this.
    ‘How about a ring?’ Hugo added.
    Jessica and Dave both looked to the officer, who said nothing while reluctantly removing a wedding ring and passing it to Hugo with a worried look.
    Hugo placed it on the table and put the blue cup over the top of it, then shuffled the three around and asked Jessica to pick one. She tapped the top of the blue one but he lifted it from the table revealing an empty space, then showed them it was under the red.
    ‘Smart arse,’ Jessica said.
    Hugo grinned and placed it back under the blue one, then shuffled them around again. Jessica picked the red one, which was blank, while Hugo laughed before revealing it had been under the blue one the whole time.
    He put the ring back under the blue one and alternated their positions on the table. ‘Which one?’ he said, looking at Dave.
    ‘Blue.’
    ‘Sir?’ Hugo asked, looking at the officer whose ring it was. He was shuffling nervously from side to side, possibly wondering if he was ever going to see the ring again.
    ‘Red.’
    ‘You’ve got yellow,’ Hugo said nodding at Jessica and then inviting them to each pick up their cups. All three of them contained nothing underneath, with the uniformed officer audibly gulping. They put the cups back on the table and Hugo started to shuffle them.
    ‘Last one,’ he said, looking at Jessica. ‘Pick one.’
    Jessica tapped the red one.
    ‘Sure?’
    ‘Yep.’
    ‘Really sure?’ Jessica nodded and Hugo started drumming on the table with his free hand before finally lifting the cup to reveal two rings, one on top of the other.
    ‘Wow,’ said the relieved officer as Hugo handed him his wedding ring.
    ‘Where did the other one come from? Jessica asked, putting on a glove to pick it up.
    Hugo pocketed his two cups and then turned the red one over for them to see. ‘There’s a hidden compartment on the bottom,’ he said. ‘You can control it