The requirements for the trick are as follows:
1. The velvet mat.
2. A pack of cards, arranged as presently to be explained.
3. Three overlays ([see p. 20]), each consisting, in the present instance, of a court card, backed with velvet of similar tint and texture to that with which the mat is covered. Three of the edges of each card are blackened, but the fourth (one of its shorter sides) is left white, and thickened by the insertion of an extra slip of white card along that end. The effect of this is that, as the card lies on the mat, its white edge is visible from that side, but from no other position.
4. Three cards, corresponding with the three overlays, which we will suppose to represent the queen of clubs, and the knaves of spades and diamonds respectively. The queen is wholly unprepared, but each of the two knaves has a point of fine wire, or a black bristle projecting a sixteenth of an inch or so, midway from each of its sides. The “queen” overlay is furnished with similar points, the object of these being to enable the performer the more easily to lift a given card with or without its duplicate overlay.
In preparing for the trick the two “knave” overlays, each covering a shilling, are laid beforehand on the mat, velvet side up, eight or ten inches apart, as shown in Fig. 11, under which circumstances they are invisible to the spectators at a few feet distance, and very nearly so to the performer, save that their white edges, turned towards himself, furnish him with an exact guide to their position. On the top of the pack are laid, first the two knaves. On these the queen overlay, and uppermost the unprepared queen.
Fig. 11
In presenting the trick the borrowed shilling is laid on the mat midway between the two overlays already on the table, and is covered with the top card of the pack, the third overlay being lifted off with it, and resting beneath it with its centre as nearly as possible over the coin.
The two following cards are now laid one on each side of the first, as in Fig. 12, each on the corresponding overlay, the white edges of these, visible to the performer, but not to the company, serving as guides to exact position. When the performer desires to show that the coin is not under a given card, he raises the card only, lifting it lengthwise, and leaving the coin covered by the overlay. When he desires to exhibit a coin, he picks up the card covering it breadthwise between finger and thumb and with it the overlay beneath it.