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y dearest’ —_ $ . . A‘previogely used white envelope was sealed | with 2a wide band of blue paper on which was ; written, in. pencil, “To Donald Duart Maclean . from Melinda Maclean.” The letier, also in | pencil, said i My Gearest Donaid, . . If you ever receive this letter it will mean | that I shan't be here to tell you haw much I f Jove you and how really proud of you lam. My only regret is that perhaps you don't know how 1 feel about you. I feel Y leave behind and have had a wonder- , ful gift in your love and the exfistence of Fergie’ and Donald. I am so _ looking forward to the new baby. If seems strangely like the first time and I think I shall really enjoy this baby completely, I never forget, | darling, that you love me and: am living for the moment when On the other hand, if she cion of what he was doing, where he had gone, one would reveal it in a letter which was intended for Donald only if she we shall ail be together again. ; died, All my deepest love and Why she did not afterwards wishes for a happy life for youd destroy this letter, why she and the children.—MELINDA.*~ This. letter was written | before Melinda drifted slow!y | away imico the anaesthetised: leep from which she might ell’ never emerge. for the- irth of her third baby, which, | edically, she should not have |° diad; was dangerous in the ; extreme, heplt it with her for 27 months and then left it behind, is an- other mystery. Money bern during the morning, and ailhough Melinda was ex- tremely il. she recovered fairly quickly and 14 days later she Jef! hospital to face, again, the tragic difficulties of being the | Wife of the Missing Diplomat. Might expect | At was-‘theletter of a courageous and generous girl, of a girl, moreover, who,- Beaconshaw most of the Press m@ despite everything, still lo?tttinrd realised that Melinda and the man whose child she was about to bear. And, whatever happened afterwards, wihat- ever she may have felt and said. from time to time. this letter helps to explain her actions two years later. But this touching letter had curious omissions, Yt made no reference of any kind to Mac- | lean’s disappearance. Melinda was still taking the attitude. hat she refused to belleve that was a:“traltor” and had gone behind the Iron Curtain, and that is clearly what she be'leved. ‘ But what did ‘she think had happened to him? One might ‘Yiave expected in this possibly farewell letigr there would be reference to#the fact that he had left heg sorie such sen- her family knew nothing more about Maclean's disappearance than they read in the news- papers. She had, moreover, been requested by the Foreign Office to ray nothing. _in the weeks between the birth of her baby daughter and the time she and her family left England for a holiday in the South of France, Melinda was near to breaking point. * Juty” that” Mrs, Dunbar, who had originally planned to take the two boys to France for a seaside haliday while Melinda had her baby, decided. that Jt Another daughter, Mrs. Catherine Terrell, went to France and, after consulting whatever you-are doing,” some | expression of her forgiveness . for the grievous wrongs he had done her, ae ae iJ house ¢alled La: + " ang Sauvageonne, silanding in j Then. two, as later,' own grounds at Beauvallon, not ; far trom St. Trepez, Betore they could go, two important developments occurred. On Friday, August 3, five weeks afler Melinda and her ' new baby daughter—also called , Melinda—left - Dunbar received hospital, Mrs. two regis- ' tered letters from St. Gall, near J certalniy have expected her te panying . the * J The baby, a healthy girl, was - By the time she returned to . It was towards the end of; , cated that he was staying al - the Hotel Centra! Zurich, and ' York, there was nothing else ta tence as “wherever you azg_egate agents, rented a Iago ee niral, and as for the N , State . . | residence, liad it existed, would Zurich, in Switzerland, One was from the Swiss Bank Corporation and the other from the Union Bank. of Switzerland, éach contained a draft in ny knowledge or even suspi- pe name on. a London bank for £1,000. ; The printed forms aécom-/ cheques Were | almost identical. “They stated merely’ that the remittance was made “by order of Mr. Robert. Becker, Hotel Central, Zurich.” Mrs. Dunbar knew no Robert Becker and was ex- fhecting no money from Switzerland. a i as obvious, anyway,’ that the money had come, in } way, from Donald: Maclean and had been sent to, ~ her rather than to Melinda In} ease the name Maclean, still : very much in the news, ei ¥ @ltracted attention. .Mr. Becker. Mrs. Dunbai immediately rang up Mi. and experts — hurried down to Tatsfteld ta ~ examine the letters and take them. aw’y for closer inspec- where, with the help of the Federal Police, they attempted to trace Mr. Becker. They were unsuccessful, There is nothing in the] world “closer” about its}?} aifairs. and the affairs of its clients {han a Swiss bank, and apart from a vague description of the man who had. boyght two £1,000 cheques and the information that he had. indi- had given an address. in New be discavered. . - And even this was little use. No one of that name, it Wus |} found, had stayed at the Hotel ew |: York address, it was non-|‘ existent, But, as New York sireets are numbered, Ameri- ean detectives were able to “that Myr Becker's een approximate: midd’s of Central Park. ® most extraordinary letter—' affectionate, loving, the kind of letter 1 called away on business might! ha 2 written to his wife to ex-' / plain that he was frighttuily. sorry he had gone off so: hurriedl, but would soon be: back, rthan that.- ‘ hig love, — ‘ Little shaky, a Jittle uncertain. ve used, but it did not rjve « quite true, wag -not quite/f, natural style. from Maclean. it was undated! and bore no indication where i, had i 2en written, but it had been posted the previous day, August 4, in England—at the! main post office at Guildford: in Surrey, only about 25 miles from Tatsfield. - Must know It was in the circumstances , | husband . suddenly: ah it made no reference to, ‘where he.was or what he was) ‘doing. But it- said that she' must know in ber heart that he’ had to do what he had done} (which meant entirely nothin tofMelinda), but that he cou! apill not tell her why he we of where he had gone. I said : “I don't know what vou must have thought of me going off and leaving you with no MELES He stated that he had sent £2,000 to her mother for her and the children: “I thought it would be better that way.” He hoped she and the child- ren. were well and = asked tenderly afler the new baby, i ‘ & money.” mate. which he knew had been bor and was a girl: It contained a fatuous phrasc about “I-can imagine yeu with a daughter,” which, was not in “the least like Maclean, whose | ordinary letters were armusine and ‘far more sophisticated And «it asked whether the baby was falr like - the other children or dark like Melinda... And it ended with wouwy Pistia most carefully ‘The letter was examined by officials of M.I.5, w came rushing down to Tatsfield “when Melinda tele- phoned to tell them she had received it,* The. writing was undoubtedly ‘hig, but it was a The phraseology, if a Hitle , silted, was on the whole that which be might conecivably nda felt that dt ;