Vengeancy by Proxy

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As far as Dr. Linton was concerned it began with the arrival of the messenger boy.

Telegram from Walter Fisson, Hotel Princip, Beograd (Belgrade), Yugo-Slavia, to Dr. Leslie Linton, 84 Nelson Court, London, W.I.:

CAN YOU RECOMMEND MENTAL SPECIALIST BELGRADE LETTER FOLLOWS

WALTER

Telegram from Dr. Leslie Linton, London, to Walter Fisson, Beograd:

IF ESSENTIAL DOCTOR BLJEDOLJE BUT WHY NOT COME HOME

LESLIE

Letter from Walter Fisson to Dr. Linton, by Air Mail:

Hotel Princip,

Beograd,

Yugo-Slavia.

3rd May, 193-

Dear Leslie:

Sorry if I alarmed you with the telegram, but something had to be done quickly. It's about Elaine. Shock, I think. I wanted to get her back home at once, of course, and booked seats on a plane, but she refused and still refuses to leave here. I can't understand it at all and am worried to death about her. The only thing seemed to be to get a professional opinion at once.

She's — well, I hardly know how to put it — but she's not herself. I don't mean that in the usual sense of the phrase. It's something much more literal than that. Heaven knows what's happened to her, poor darling, but it frightens me. And I'm cut off from her, too. I can't even talk to her properly and try to understand what the trouble is, nor she to me beyond a few essentials. She can grasp only the simplest sentences, spoken slowly and carefully, and she herself replies only with a few words in broken English.

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