The Sultan's Daughter by Dennis Wheatley Page A

now second nature to him, adding for full measure references to many of his well-known acquaintances in Paris and descriptions of some of the outstanding scenes he had witnessed there during the Revolution. Since he spoke without the slightest hesitation and in French that was beyond reproach, he felt confident by the time he had finished that he had convinced the Court that he was a Frenchman. Yet one matter arose out of his examination that caused him a few nasty moments.
    From beneath the table at which he was sitting the Prosecutor produced the little valise that Roger had brought ashore, and to which he had clung during his flight along the beach until he was compelled to drop it on meeting the two men who had attacked him. Opening the valise, the Prosecutor took from it a small squat bottle and handed it up to the magistrates for them to look at.
    As Roger recognised it his heart gave a thump. The bottle bore a handwritten label, ‘Grove Place; Cherry Brandy.’ Old Jim Button made a couple of gallons or so of the cordial every year with the morello cherries that grew in the garden.Knowing Roger’s fondness for this home-made tipple he had slipped a bottle of it into the valise just before Roger’s departure.
    â€˜You have told the Court,’ said the Prosecutor, ‘that while in Lymington you deliberately kept away from Grove Place. How comes it, then, that you had in your valise a bottle of this liqueur which has the name of the Admiral’s residence upon it?’
    â€˜I bought it,’ Roger declared, after only a second’s hesitation. ‘I saw it with other bottles in the coffee room of the inn, and chose it as most suitable to keep me warm during my crossing.’
    The fat magistrate in the bright-blue coat was examining the bottle and he said, ‘The handwritten label shows this to be a private brew. Inns buy their liquor from merchants, not from amateur cordial makers.’
    â€˜It may have been stolen,’ Roger countered. ‘Perhaps one of the servants at the house sold it for half its value to the innkeeper.’
    The magistrate shook his head. ‘Such things happen, but not in this case. You say you saw it in the coffee room of the inn. No landlord who had bought stolen goods would be such a fool as to display them publicly in his coffee room. I’m an innkeeper myself and can vouch for that.’
    â€˜Then you had best drink it, Citizen,’ Roger quipped. ‘You will find it very good.’
    His sally raised a titter, but next moment he could have bitten off his tongue. The Chairman of the Bench was on him in a flash. ‘This bottle is unopened, yet you admit to knowledge of its contents. Therefore, you must be well acquainted with the cordial and must have drunk it recently. I regard this as evidence that you did visit Grove Place and were given the bottle there.’
    A slight shiver ran through Roger. The courtroom was warmed only by a charcoal brazier; so it was distinctly chilly, and by this time his having had nothing to eat since the previous night was beginning to tell upon him. With an effort, he shrugged his shoulders and said:
    â€˜Citizen Chairman, you err in counting that against me. I recommended the cordial on the grounds that I recall enjoyingit when as a youth I lived at Grove Place and I saw no reason to suppose that its quality had deteriorated.’
    A frown momentarily wrinkled the bulging forehead of the Chairman, then he said, ‘We will leave that question for the moment and enquire further into an outstanding feature of the case. You have stated that your recent visit to England was as an agent for General Bonaparte, and that having completed your mission you fooled the Captain of a British sloop into bringing you back to France. Evidence has been given that you were landed safely and covered near half a kilometre along the shore away from the boat before you were challenged by two members of the second patrol.