The Collected Short Stories - Jeffrey Archer [144]
Bob sat on the edge of his seat, mesmerized by the old man’s recollections.
“I’m grateful for your candor, sir,” he said. “And you can be assured of my discretion.”
“Thank you, Kefford,” said the old man, now almost whispering. “I’m only too delighted to have been able to assist you. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“No, thank you, sir,” said Bob. “I think you’ve covered everything I needed to know.”
Bob rose from his chair, and as he turned to thank Mrs. Elliot he noticed for the first time a bronze cast of an arm hanging on the far wall. Below it was printed in gold:
H. R. R. DEERING
1909–10–11
(KEBLE, BOW)
“You must have been a fine oarsman, sir.”
“No, not really,” said the old blue. “But I was lucky enough to be in the winning boat three years in a row, which wouldn’t please a Cambridge man like yourself.”
Bob laughed. “Perhaps one last question before I leave, sir.”
“Of course, Kefford.”
“Did they ever make a bronze of Dougie Mortimer’s arm?”
“They most certainly did,” replied the priest. “But it mysteriously disappeared from your boathouse in 1912. A few weeks later the boatman was fired without explanation—caused quite a stir at the time.”
“Was it known why he was fired?” asked Bob.
“Partridge claimed that when the old boatman got drunk one night, he confessed to having dumped Mortimer’s arm in the middle of the Cam.” The old man paused, smiled, and added, “Best place for it, wouldn’t you say, Kefford?”
Bob thought about the question for some time, wondering how his father would have reacted. He then replied simply, “Yes, sir. Best place for it.”
CLEAN SWEEP IGNATIUS
Few showed much interest when Ignatius Agarbi was appointed Nigeria’s minister of finance. After all, the cynics pointed out, he was the seventeenth person to hold the office in seventeen years.
In Ignatius’s first major policy statement to Parliament he promised to end graft and corruption in public life and warned the electorate that no one holding an official position could feel safe unless he led a blameless life. He ended his maiden speech with the words, “I intend to clear out Nigeria’s Augean stables.”
Such was the impact of the minister’s speech that it failed to get a mention in the Lagos Daily Times. Perhaps the editor considered that, since the paper had covered the speeches of the previous sixteen ministers in extenso, his readers might feel they had heard it all before.
Ignatius, however, was not disheartened by the lack of confidence shown in him, and set about his new task with vigor and determination. Within days of his appointment he had caused a minor official at the Ministry of Trade to be jailed for falsifying documents relating to the import of grain. The next to feel the bristles of Ignatius’s new broom was a leading Lebanese financier, who was deported without trial for breach of the exchange control regulations. A month later came an event which even Ignatius considered a personal coup: the arrest of the inspector general of police for accepting bribes—a perk the citizens of Lagos had in the past considered went with the job. When four months later the police chief was sentenced to eighteen months in jail, the new finance minister finally made the front page of the Lagos Daily Times. An editorial on the center page dubbed him “Clean Sweep Ignatius,” the new broom every guilty man feared. Ignatius’s reputation as Mr. Clean continued to grow as arrest followed arrest, and unfounded rumors began circulating in the capital that even General Otobi, the head of state, was under investigation by his own finance minister.
Ignatius alone now checked, vetted, and authorized all foreign contracts worth over one hundred million dollars. And although every decision he made was meticulously scrutinized by his enemies, not a breath of scandal ever became associated with his name.
When Ignatius began his second year of office as minister of finance,