BRITAIN: The Informer

Kenneth Lennon was on the run when he wandered into Ronnie Scott's jazz club in London's Soho district one night earlier this month. He also was drunk. George Melly, a blues singer and former film critic for the Sunday Observer, had never seen him before, but Lennon insisted on buying Melly a brandy. "He seemed pretty frightened," Melly recalls, "but the fear was covered with drink, and drink had given him a certain courage."

Lennon told Melly that he had been an informer for Scotland Yard's Special Branch and had been responsible for sending...

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