The Monster Butler by Allan Nicol

Author:Allan Nicol
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781845026028
Publisher: Black & White Publishing
Published: 2011-11-29T16:00:00+00:00

The documents were left by Mr R. S. Guinness – a First Secretary at the Foreign Office, on secondment to the Cabinet Office … in a briefcase in the hall of his home in Hereford Square, South Kensington, London.

When he returned from a social engagement with his wife at 12.40am on June 15, the door was open and the briefcase had gone.

Given the proximity of Guinness’s flat to Ruth’s, it is probable that Fontaine actually broke in, having cased the place at some point when he had been visiting her.

However he obtained possession of the papers, Fontaine was just the sort to wildly overestimate their value. He probably did imagine himself as the astute negotiator holding a desperate establishment to account, but his total detachment from reality emerges when he considered, then acted upon, the idea of ‘bartering’ for his male lover’s freedom with some obviously minor departmental documents. Underlining his own lack of insight, even Fontaine admitted that it only belatedly occurred to him that the prison authorities would be on to him as soon as he mentioned the prisoner’s name. If that wasn’t brainless enough, how could an approach to the Soviets possibly assist Barnard’s early release?

There was something inevitable about his approach to the Soviet Consulate, as that was a fairly regular channel for the self-important but disaffected types who craved attention in those days. Most of them assumed their importance would be greatly enhanced overnight if they approached the perceived Cold War enemy and professed admiration for the communist system. The staff at Soviet embassies and consulates must have been used to – and privately amused by – the quite frequent callers who ultimately had little to offer but a secret desire to achieve instant notoriety or recognition. Unlike today, the Soviet threat became a focus for aggrieved characters who could dress up their real or imagined complaints as legitimate political points of principle.

The simple truth then appears to be that it was just another of his or a friend’s break-ins that he embroidered with the usual spy fantasy – stock-in-trade surveillance photographs, masculine-looking Soviet women, shady contacts in the park and the inevitable book of matches from the Dorchester; an added ‘James Bond’ touch was the Special Branch already knowing his favourite tipple.

In reality, Fontaine actually went to the Soviet Consulate on four occasions but was never taken seriously; neither was there a walk in the park to counter MI5 surveillance during which a contact number was given out. The whole espionage scenario existed only in Fontaine’s head and when he realised he was unable to ‘trade’ the papers he had, he simply hid them.

When the venture ended in failure, as the majority of Fontaine’s criminal enterprises did, he confessed that he actually had no admiration for the communist system but was more inclined to being a monarchist, a fact, no doubt, which brought comfort and assurance to all at the Palace.

In its report on the court case, the Guardian described how the prosecuting counsel

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