The Sultan's Daughter by Dennis Wheatley

This resulted in Giffens repeating, in dribs and drabs but fully, the statement he had volunteered so readily to the Coastguards early that morning. Roger could see that he had succeeded in scaring the man to a point at which he gave these details only with reluctance, but he could not prevent particulars of himself, his home at Lymington, his visits to Walhampton and his marriage to Amanda from coming out.
    When they had finished with Giffens, Roger cross-examined him and, greatly to his relief, found that the seaman had made up his mind to hedge. He agreed almost eagerly that before Roger boarded the sloop at Lymingtonhe had not seen him for nearly seven years, so might perhaps have mistaken him for the Admiral’s son.
    Roger then made a bold attempt to trade on Giffen’s fears by saying, ‘As you were at Walhampton before the war with France began, you surely must remember a French gentleman who came there several times with the Admiral: a cousin of young Mr. Brook, who strongly resembled him?’
    Giffens gave him a startled look, shook his head, then, thinking better of it, mumbled something that the interpreter translated as, ‘Well, perhaps. There were a lot of Frenchmen who were refugees from the Revolution living in Lymington in those days, and some of them visited at Walhampton. But I couldn’t be certain.’
    Although that left the matter in doubt, Roger felt, as Giffens stood down, that he had scored a valuable point and when the Prosecutor began to question him he gave his story with quiet confidence.
    It was that General Bonaparte, knowing that he had spent several years of his boyhood in England and was bilingual, so could pass as an Englishman, had sent him there to report on the measures being taken by the English to resist invasion.
    He had been landed on the Kentish coast by smugglers, and had spent the past six weeks staying in small towns on the Kent, Sussex and Hampshire coasts, working his way westward until he reached Lymington.
    There, four nights ago, at an inn, he had got into conversation with a naval Lieutenant. This young man had been drinking heavily and, after they had talked for some while, confided that owing to gambling he had got himself into serious money troubles. The Lieutenant had also mentioned earlier that he was under orders to sail his sloop up to Dover as soon as the weather permitted.
    Having covered the territory assigned him by his General, Roger was anxious to get back to France. Normally he would have had to wait until he could get in touch with another gang of smugglers working from the Hampshire coast; but the sloop had seemed too good an opportunity to miss if he could persuade the Lieutenant to put him over. He had, therefore, told the Lieutenant that he was a Government agent seeking a passage and asked his help. The officerhad, at first, demurred, on the grounds that he would be acting without orders and might risk his ship if he stood in too near the French coast; but Roger had played on his anxiety about money and had overcome his scruples by offering him the considerable sum he would have had to pay a smuggler to run him across.
    The Prosecutor then asked him a number of questions about his parentage, upbringing in England, later career in France, recent stay in England and whether, during it, he had been to Grove Place to see any of his English relatives.
    Assuming the last question to be a trap, Roger replied promptly, ‘Certainly not. With a war in progress how could I possibly have explained my presence in England to them? They would have felt compelled to hand me over to the authorities. On the contrary, while I was in Lymington I was in constant fear of being recognised; so I spent nearly all the two days I was there in my room at the inn. I would never have gone to Lymington at all had it not been a part of my instructions to report on the shipping in the harbour.’
    To all the other questions he gave the stock answers which were