Sharpe's Tiger (Sharpe, #1)

by Bernard Cornwell

‘Only a fool takes pride in pretending that a skill he doesn’t possess is worthless.’

‘He’ll only waste the plunder,’ McCandless said severely. ‘He’ll fritter it on women and drink.’ ‘Don’t sound like a waste to me, sir.’

Yet his death, despite being pictured and re-enacted so many times, was never fully explained because no one ever discovered who exactly killed him (it was most probably a soldier of the 12th’s Grenadier Company). The Tippoo’s body was found, but his killer never came forward and it is presumed that this reticence was caused by the man’s unwillingness to admit to ownership of the Tippoo’s jewels. Where many of those jewels are today, no one knows.