Skeeter glanced up. “What was his name?”
“Kiplinger. Mr. Kiplinger.”
Skeeter sat back in his chair. “Kiplinger? Why, yes, I have heard of him, although we’ve never met.” The corners of his lips twitched. “Quite a gambler, Mr. Kiplinger.” Skeeter’s eyes twinkled as a positively wicked mood stole over him. “Do you suppose you’ll ever be going back to San Francisco, sir?”
The card player smiled. “No, Mr. Cartwright, I think it exceedingly unlikely. An uncle of mine had gone out there during the Gold Rush of ’49, you see, made a fortune selling whiskey and victuals to the miners. Parlayed it into an astonishing sum, buying shares in mining operations. When he died last year, I went out to see to the estate, since I was named in his will. He’d never married, poor old Uncle Charles, left a fortune with no heirs but a nephew. Black sheep of a very fine family, let me tell you. But he added ten thousand per annum to my baronetcy when he passed on. Quite an astounding country, America.”
Skeeter grinned. “Well, since you don’t plan on going back, mind if I let you in on Mr. Kiplinger’s secret? Quite a scandal it was, too. Happened just before I came over here.” The other gentlemen at the table leaned foward, abruptly intent. Even Tanglewood, whose job was to keep watch for Malcolm and Kaederman, listened with keen interest. “Mr. Kiplinger,” Skeeter warmed to his subject, “is what’s known as a machine man.”
“A machine man?” the baronet frowned. “What the deuce is a machine man?”
“In short, a cheat, a swindler, and a fraud. Maybe you’ve heard the term `ace up your sleeve’? Well, what Mr. Kiplinger did was invent an ingenious little machine that fit around his forearm and wrist. It had a little clip in the end of it, to hold a playing card or two, and it could be extended down along the inside of his wrist, like so,” Skeeter pointed to his own forearm, “or pulled back again, to hide whatever cards he’d slipped into the clip. He tied a string to the end of the sliding arm of his machine, ran it down his coat and inside his trousers, to a little mechanism at his knees.”