Todd, Charles Read Online Free

a private's pay couldn't explain? No, we split the money and take it home with us. We wait a year, and then decide how to hide it in plain sight. Do you think we've fooled them? Stupidity will get us hanged yet."
    "As long as we split it now," Penrith said. "I want it in my hand, where you can't trick me or hide from me. Once we've split it, we're finished with each other."
    "Did you hear they found the Boers that attacked our train and hanged the leader? I wouldn't press my luck if I were you. A misstep now, and we'll be decorating the gibbet he kept warm for us."
    But Penrith was not to be put off.
    Quarles took five days of leave and found a carriage and horse that he could borrow, though his hands were still stiff and almost useless. He located the site of the attack after some difficulty, found the flat stone after walking in circles for three hours, and dug up the packet in the oiled cloth. Most of it he split into two black valises he'd brought with him. For the rest, he found a black woman in an isolated hut and asked her to sew the money into pockets in the lining of his tunic. She thought him a mad Englishman, but he promised to pay her well. When the tunic was ready, he drowned her in the stream where she washed her clothes, for fear she would gossip. If he'd been a superstitious man, he'd have believed she put a curse on him as she died. As it was, she fought hard, and he was glad he hadn't put his tunic on before dealing with her.
    Penrith was waiting for him at the livery stable when he brought the carriage back, and demanded that he take his pick of the two valises. "To be sure the split was fair and square."
    "As God is my witness," Quarles answered him, "you'll find both hold the same sum. Look for yourself. It's more than either of us can ever expect to earn. Don't be greedy."
    Penrith said, his curiosity getting the better of him as he examined both valises, "Does it ever bother you, how we came by this?"
    "Does it bother you?" Quarles retorted, picking up the nearest case. He walked off and didn't look back.
    As luck would have it, the two men arrived in London on the same troop ship and were mustered out of the army in the same week. Quarles took Penrith to the nearest pub and made a suggestion: "We've got to find work. Until the Army's forgot us. It wouldn't look right, would it, for either of us to be rich as a nob, when we joined up with no more than a shilling to our names."
    Penrith was stubborn. "You've put me off long enough. I have my share, I'll spend it as I please."
    "You do that, and I'll tell them you stole the money while I was trying to save the lieutenant."
    In the end, Quarles put the wind up Penrith, who was afraid of Quarles and would be for years to come. They each took up positions at a merchant bank, Penrith as the doorman because of his fair looks and his air of breeding, and general work for Quarles, with the ugly scars on his hands. His eyebrows had never grown out again properly, giving him a quizzical expression. But he was a big man with pale red hair and a charm that he practiced diligently, turning it on at need. The account he gave of his burns elicited laughter and sympathy, for he kept the story of rushing into a burning house to save a child droll rather than dramatic. There was no mention of the army or South Africa. And as far as anyone knew, neither Penrith nor Quarles had ever left the country.
    Quarles had been good at numbers in school, and that training, together with a clever mind, was put to work. It wasn't long before he caught the eye of one of the junior partners, and six months later, he was promoted to Mr. James's clerk.
    On that same day Quarles said to Penrith, "I can see that there's a way to be rich without suspicion," and outlined his plan.
    Penrith, ever slow to see what might be to his own advantage, said, "But we've got money, we don't need to work. You promised—"
    Quarles looked at him. "Have you counted what you've got? It's nothing compared to