◆ SpookStack

Tr was a smiling May evening in. 1901 when | this atory that was to echo round tie world beganin & large house at Patsfield, near Westerham, in Kent: It was the home of the Matleana, Donald Muclean, he aged. 37 end & promising : senior official tn the Foreign : Servies, hed for. six months ’ bean head of the American De- | . partment of the Foreign Office. : This appointment followed sick leave of six mooths while be Was recovering from a “nervous breakdown” ‘which developed while he was Serving ag Coutvellur and Head. of ; Chancery in the Brith Fon- - Gassy at Caira. . i He was Ting sith Melinda , amd their two children, Fergus, : ged seven, and Donald, five, _ at Beatenshaw, their ralher . is@lated Douse af Tatsfeld, CLUB LIFE Then no news Foe a few months sfter he Kad Yesumed work al. the : Foreign Office at the beginning ‘of November, Donsid Mactean : had ted a fairly regular life, . i eatehing an early train back {o , Patsield each evening and ‘spending his spare time with » Melinda and the children, ina April this placid, domes- , Uelty came to amend, and he reverted graduaby to the Mac- ‘ean of earlier $days in iterendh W385 to be June 14, ' married lite, going from office : te bars: and clus in the West ' End instead of going home, About this) time, once or twiee Melinda was . Without news of him for two "at ‘three days ata time. a nhc then’ i me, too, he - eran spending nights fn town te his is impertant in. view. @ the circumstances of Ris dix appearance. ‘The change in his. behaviour coincides with ihe return to England of a friend whe had vised dim in Cairo: . . _ DISGRACE For Burgess Guy Burgess had been sent Dack from Washinglon, where i he had been Second Secretary | al the British Embassy, ia. cori- | siderable disgrace, He was on the point of forastalliing pos- sible. dismissal from Foreign Service by resigning, and was eonsidering an. offer ofa well-paid pest on a London | Hews paper, ; + Since bis return io England on May 7 he bad Seen Hying in London, renewing -¢ ' triendships Im a succession of — duncheon, dinner and: drinking ). parties: There is no evidence, how ever, that Mis meetings with | Donald Maclean were more ; than casual, even accidental : | they were not close friends, 5. cartains, doing edd painting Mrs. Maclean was expecting | her third baby and age the - birth, ke that of her twe pre- - winus children, was to be a dient. Cesarean, the date: was drown wel in advance i cy ae x es Ce ill ea eC ee ORS ee ee er ae * ee a IN ee NS OS er gee SURAT NE Rag eee Cae Cite Plaga the : panned. eee, Raa | But not long Her mother, Mrs, Dunbar-- who arrived in Cairo on & revinusiy ,;planned visit ts Melinda just. atter, Maclean's recipitete return to London. had lett her in financial difa- culties aml In a state of con - siderable anxiety—had.. gone back to the United States in November, Mrs. Dunbar had promised io core to England about 4 fortnight before Melinda's baby was born, and then, while Melioda was recuperating, take the two smell boys to France for a holiday. There they would » be foined. by their parents in - August, when Maclean's leave was due. Melinda . had passed. an extremely busy and, im. many Ways, happy owidter getting Beaconshaw ints some sort of Her iueniture had frdm Cairo, and she was end ‘Yeskly cocenpled dn makin; jobs and making the neglected house inte a home... From fugit hetore Christmas, 3956, untill the following spring was one of the happiest times in her life, . But this was mot io lest. By. the middle of May, when Mrs, Dunbar arrived back in Paris to stay there with her young- est daughter Harriet, Maclean's | arratic behaviour. was again casting shadows over Malinadas ¢ cet ees ce mee RT