Prologue

The magician had the huge glass tank filled to overflowing with thousands of litres of cold water, ready for the first dress rehearsal with the new line-up. He tossed the filler hose down and worked the two hinged tops back and forth, checking they fitted together, that the chains and manacles were secure on the hydraulic hoist. The magician ensured the lever operating the enveloping curtain mechanism was in working order, that the padlocks were hooked in place ready to close up and lock the artiste in place upside down and fully-immersed in the water-filled tank. Finally, he checked that the removable hinge pins were well greased and easy to slip out unnoticed prior to the escape act commencing.

All this was routine that he had performed many times in rehearsal and hundreds of times on stage, but what was happening next was anything but routine.

He descended the step ladder to the deck of the luxury liner’s large laundry room, where all the thousands of towels, bedsheets, kitchen and dining hall linens were washed daily. The laundry was fortuitously positioned on a deck below the waterline, immediately below but right next to the level of the theatre stage where this magic act was to be performed as an entertainment that evening in front of an appreciative audience.

He sneezed and blew his nose at the bottom rung of the ladder, reminding himself of why he had rigged the set up for his lovely assistant to practice being the performing artiste. He shook his head and turned to the beautiful girl now sitting in the chair nearby after turning off the hose and rolling it up neatly out of sight.

“I’m ready for you now, Mavis,” he spoke slowly, quietly.

The beautiful girl smiled sweetly at him as she stood up from the chair and confidently walked towards him with a bouncing gait, allowing her dressing gown to slip smoothly from her shoulders to the floor in her flaunting wake. She wore a bright white bikini, a teeny weeny bikini he couldn’t help but notice, one that she hadn’t worn in front of him before, in stark contrast to her lightly tanned skin, slightly turning red to gold from the few weeks of sunbathing since she had been aboard ship as it steamed through the Mediterranean Sea. Being a magician act entertainment duo, they had been secured by the cruise liner’s management to tour for the six-month holdiday season.

“I’m ready Moses,” she smirked as she pirouetted and showed off her delicious body as she would do in the act, “I’m so looking forward to doing this for real.”

“You did really well during the dry runs, Mavis,” Moses admitted, “but don’t get cocky, now. You’ve really got to hold your breath during the first curtain phase and that water is dammed cold.”