Posted by Geoff Loker
on 3/27/2004, 5:46 pm, in reply to "Black Alibi - the four of spades"
216.209.79.20
I did a quick search on Google for "fortune telling playing cards" and turned up the fact that there are at least two different systems (probably many more) for doing card-readings with an ordinary deck of playing cards. In one, the Four of Spades is not a negative card to get (but it also had a somewhat positive meaning for the Ace of Spades, so...); in the other, the Four of Spades had negative connotations (and the Ace of Spades meant "death" 
. Probably Woolrich came across a system where the Four of Spades had the negative connotations, and he used *it* rather than the Ace of Spades in order to not give away totally that Clo-Clo was doomed.
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