Around the end of WWII there were lots of "retired military" persons writing memoirs and a couple of the momentarily popular writers were former "batmen" who served as personal attendants to high ranking officers.

A couple of them passed on the tip that when pressed for time they carefully polished their officer's "pocket change" and laid it out neatly. When the officer saw that "fastidious attention to detail" they could get by with almost anything, with one guy saying his officer once commented on the coins and didn't notice there was still mud on his boots when he put them on.

Misdirection and diversion of attention are the keys (?).

John