Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus./UK) a version of the three-card trick; thus pea and thimble man, one who conducts the game.

1849		Royal Cornwall Gaz. 28 Sept. n.p.: He cheats at the races with thimbles and peas / [...] / He revels at night in a Mumpers Hotel.
1851		G. Borrow Lavengro III 292: How did you lose it? I hope not by the pea and thimble.
1907		H. Lawson ‘Mateship’ in Lone Hand (Sydney) Sept. 511/2: Ginger [...] is ‘pretty swift with the three-pea,’ but never rises above a little safe ‘thieving’.
1918		Euripidean: Troopship Souvenir 6: An me arunnin’ messages for th’ barmaid at th’ ‘Spreading Sun’ and workin’ in conjunction with a pea an’ thimble joint [AND].
1938		Wodehouse Code of the Woosters 37: Old Bassett is firmly convinced that I am a combination of Raffles and a pea-and-thimble man.
1966		J. Waten Season of Youth 82: I started to walk, hardly taking any notice of the horses pounding round the course... There were pea and thimble men displaying their skill and fleecing the half-shrewd mugs [AND].