Part 2






"No, no."Mo says. Then the glasses fall off and Stiff’s up and bumping into things again.
They do the routine three more times. Always do your gag three times.
Why?
It’s the Golden Mean.
What’s the Golden Mean got to do with it?
It’s like fairy tales. Three brothers, three sisters, three wishes. Mystic. Never fails. Anyway on they go. F, K, F, K, F, K. Glasses falling off... bump, bump, bump. Until in exasperation Mo spits out... Mo could really spit. Umbrellas and raincoats in the front row when Mo was on. "Why is it," he says. "Whenever I point to F you see K?"
Brought the house down.
That’s subtle? That’s funny?
Aw, you had to’ve been there. 24.
The Koran and Bible have many proscriptions against the practise of witchcraft and sorcery. In some ‘primitive’ societies it is still death for anyone even suspected. As late as 1945 at Lower Quinton in the English County of Warwickshire the ensaguinated body of Charles Walton, a seventy four-year-old hedger, so suspected, was found in a meadow, pinned to the ground with a pitchfork through his throat. Although the circumstances (The sign of the cross had been hacked on his face and chest with his slash hook, his blood allowed to drain into the earth.) were more consistent with a perverted fertility rite, witches have learned the hard way that it is best to carry out their experiments and activities discreetly and in isolation. 25.
Not so Roie.


The bishops were in a tizz about all the occult activities going on. Some charismatics were rumoured to be using an Ouija board in church as part of their service, giving sermons in tongues and exorcising demons. One poor chappie, suffering from lust, curvature of the spine and elephantiasis affecting his private parts was diagnosed as having 300 demons in him. And up the Cross some woman was supposedly having it off with a Black Panther.
I don’t know how the lust chappie was treated but shortly afterwards Sir Marcus Loane commissioned an inquiry into the occult-the second such inquiry no less since the middle ages.
Months later, the inquiries findings were that indeed some charismatics associated with the Anglican church were using an Ouija board as part of their service; giving sermons in tongues and allegedly exorcising demons. There was apparently some woman up the Cross doing something with a panther and the poor chappie suffering from lust had committed suicide since giving his evidence.
Archbishop Sir Marcus Loane put his foot down."It will simply have to stop," he said
26.
Roie had gone too far-too far up the nose of the establishment. Time and again she had been busted for her behaviour. Time and again she had made the Vice Squad look foolish.
Her last bust was in November 1956 when Detectives Trevener and Hayes crashed a party at 1.45.P.M. The party, subject to numerous complaints by neighbours had been going on since the night before. Roie and Gavin Greenlees, who was on temporary release from Callan Park, were charged with grave misconduct.
Grave Misconduct was an ambiguous charge, but it was enough to see them up before Judge Clegg at Darlinghurst sessions on November 14. 1956.
With the noisy support of assorted Wizards and Witches, Gavin admitted that his conduct had been grave, Roie said that if she said that Gavin’s admission to an act, which was never specified, was nonsense she was afraid that the police would think Gavin was having delusions and he would be sent back to Callan Park.
After other witnesses testified to Gavin’s split personality and his propensity to fantasise, Judge Clegg cleared his court of the assorted nutters. When decorum had been re established, he pronounced a verdict of not guilty.
After Gavin was placed in care of his parents, who made an undertaking that he would keep up with the pills, Roie skipped with joy and waved to the Vice Squad’s Detective Bert Trevener.
Once again she had beaten the cops-made them look like bumbling oafs; wowsers who didn’t like to see people having fun. Bad day if a person couldn’t have a bit of a party... mumble, mutter.
.
Detective Sergeant Trevener packed up his papers and watched Roie leave the court with her retinue. He claims not have known her before her bust, other than by vague repute as the witch of Kings Cross. But from that day she was marked.
In September 1955 a pair of petty criminals from Glebe, Frank Honer and his pal Ray Ager, were doing the rounds of the Sydney newspapers hawking some rolls of film they had lifted from Roie’s flat in Brougham street.
Despite their self-proclaimed reputations for fearless exposes etc, none of the editors would touch the film. The Sun’s editor had it processed but decided it was "too hot."
However... even although the ‘feelthy pictures, bargain at 200 quid.’ were too hot for publication, there could still be a story if they were handed over to the Vice squad and action was taken by them.
The pictures landed on Trevener’s desk and the detective immediately identified the couple engaged in what was described as, ‘ sado masochism’ and ‘the abominable act of buggery’ as Roie and Gavin. Even although the acts were obviously staged, (Roie claimed it was a charade performed for guests at her birthday party) they were still obscene.
The head of the Vice squad, Detective Inspector Ron Walden placed Trevener in charge of the case. The first thing Trev did was go to the Sun, find out where they had scored the original film. The next thing was a quick trip to Glebe where he busted Honer and Ager on a charge of offering obscene publications for sale, for which they were later sentenced to six months. Two days later Trev turned up at Brougham St. There, he arrested Gavin. Roie, who was visiting her sister in Kirribilli, he arrested later. They were both charged with making an obscene publication.
Two days before that bust, unaware that the undeveloped film she had stashed down the back of a sofa was gone, Roie had had another visitor.
Joe Morris, The Sun’s senior crime rounds man dropped in on Roie, ‘just to say hello’. While she was in the small kitchen making a pot of tea, Morris was ratting around in the sofa to see if there was anything Honer and Ager may have missed. Before the kettle was whistling he hit pay dirt...a swag of intimate and revealing letters from Sir Eugene Goosens. When Roie came back with the tea tray,Morris suddenly remembered an important engagement and was off to his mate, Trev at the Vice squad.As crime goes by. norm lipson.tony baraneo.92 ironbark press. Sydney.p.221.Salter G.W. july3 99. p.18. Certainly not by Trev. It was one of those questions where he ‘could not remember’.
In return for the letters Morris got a scoop. The Sun’s exclusive was headlined, ARTIST ARRESTED! Roie was shown being bundled into a police car. ARTIST FACES CHARGE OVER OBSCENE FILM! 27.
When Eugene read the evening papers he,
not surprisingly feared implication and hurriedly destroyed his private collection of pornography and black magic paraphernalia, probably by burning it in the backyard of his Wahroongah home. 28
That done, Eugene left for London to be invested at Buckingham Palace with the knighthood he had been awarded for services to Australian music.
One of the ‘perks’ associated with being a Vice squad detective is that you were allowed to look at material which could tend to corrupt and deprave ordinary mortals. Consequently there was much ribald comment and hilarity as the photos and accounts of sex magic (S.M.) between Sir Eugene, Gavin and Roie were passed around. Such as the following,

Roiewitch.
The monster package arrived obviously by daemonic angel carrier (such speed) in the aft. And contemplating your hermaphroditic organs in the pictures made me desert my evenings work and fly to you by first arial coven. But, as promised, you came to me early this morning (about 1.45) and when a suddenly flapping window blind announced your arrival, I realised by a delicious orificial tingling that you were about to make your presence felt in a very real sense. Seriously you were definately here, and you were doubtless aware of what took place. I was in the middle of a rite to A, and he had just asked for the "osculume infame" (which I was just about to administer) when you took advantage of my position and administered same to me. A strange hoofed creature was in the room with us-upper and middle parts female, lower centaur, and a pretty crustacean creature with large milky breasts also appeared. I will draw it for you when I see you. All night I was in sheer s.m. delight, and my offerings were by results most acceptable to the beings... more of that later.
Your description of the triple s.m. rite (you, G and me) was curious because I was aware of you both as female (G always comes to me as female) I was fully present, also in changing... 29.

The ‘osculume infame’, mentioned also in many middle age witch trials, is where the members of the coven kissed the hindquarters of the manifest devil. Another thing mentioned in the trials was an ointment, which when smeared on the witch’s body enabled her to fly. It was such an ointment that Claire Goessen, the Belgian witch, at her trial in 1603, was charged with using. Sir Eugene sent Roie a recipe for such an ointment. However it does not seem to contain the aconite, causing irregularities of the heart leading to feelings of falling or flying, or belladonna, causing delirium which were the main ingredients in Claire’s ointment. 30.
None withstanding, the instructions must have been the source of much amusement to the guys in vice. Signed ‘Djinn’, one of Sir Eugene’s nom de plumes, it read,
Use half level teaspoon. Massage cream into skin over wide area on inner face of the thigh (between crotch and knee) or on abdomen. Use on unwashed skin. Dont bathe anointed area one hour before or three hours after. Dont use during menstrual period. No man should use this, as it would be more than dangerous.
DJINN.
Base. Creme d’Egypte
prepared by Anna (Paris)
herb ointment-blood base.
Apply once a day for 3,4 or 5 days. 29.

Further making their day, no doubt, would have been the intimacies contained in a postcard...
No, I dont know the person (assistant c of the P) you mention who is collaborating with Gav. Extreme caution will be necessary lest a chance remark reveal aught!
I long to hear from beautiful Gav; tell him I have started sketches of H of U. (H of U. Obviously refers to the opera, Fall of the House of Usher, the three were collaborating in with Eugene composing, Roie designing and Gavin doing the libretto.) You don’t know what your long letters mean to me; understanding and eloquent they are. And happily satisfying to my nature, occult obscene and of other worlds and beings. I am mastering many things in all of which you figure and help. Even now my bat wings envelope and lift you as yours often enfold me into Arimanic spheres. Let me know when you get this fourth missive, more follows. Feed me constantly with yours; the milk and essences of yo emanations be always with me, and G too.
My black familiar takes this to you. 29.

Another note told Roie that, ’anonymity is still best.’ Another warned,’DESTROY ALL THIS!’ 29.
Yet, despite all the warnings, Roie stuffed the films and letters down the back of a couch to be found by the light fingers of the petty criminals, Honer and Ager, and the equally light fingered journalist, Morris.
Trev looked at all the photos, read all the letters again and wondered at what had attracted the suave, sophisticated Knight of the realm to that squalid basement in Brougham street. He imagined him going there with his velour hat at a rakish angle, his coat with the Astrakhan collar slung over his shoulders and shook his head. Well, Knight of the realm or not, Sir Eugene was a gonner.
Trev approached his boss, Ron Walden. Walden looked at what had been amassed and told him to go for it. However, Sir was in London having his shoulders tapped with the Queen’s sword...but he would be back and Trev would be waiting.
As the Vice squad did not have the resources to tail Sir in far off London, Trev went to Joe Morris, star crime reporter of the Sun, which did.
In return for another promised exclusive, the Sun’s London contacts trailed Sir as he went from one seedy book shop to another in Soho and Leicester Square, reestablishing his personal collection of pornography and alleged magical paraphernalia.
Thirty-six hours before Sir caught his flight back to Sydney, Morris had supplied Trev with the flight number, arrival time and the added information that a briefcase Sir was carrying could be interesting. There was only one problem and Trev was very much aware of it. The problem was one of jurisdiction.
Trev’s plan had been to confront Sir with the assembled evidence he had gathered for the intended charge of ‘scandalous conduct’. However the importation / possession of prohibited material was a Customs offence and, as it was a Federal matter, had precedence over anything Vice could come up with. Customs would have ‘first suck of the lolly’. Customs would go through Sir’s bags. Customs could even set off that ’orificial tingling’ by a body search of Sir, if they so wished.
Monday June 19 1999.
Interview with Albert (Trev) Trevener ex Vice squad detective sergeant.
Trev is now 82 and has been retired from the force 22 years. Holder of the Queen’s Medal, he has lived in the same house, 22 Eccles Ave Ashfield, all his married life. Methodist and Mason, citizens and colleagues presented him with a grandfather clock on his retirement. Throughout this interview it played variations of the Westminster chimes every 1/4-hour.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines vice as- evil, especially grossly immoral habit, or conduct. Particular form of depravity. Moral perversion. Morally evil. Dissolute. Would you agree with that definition?
Yes.
How did you get into the business?
I got in as a young constable. My job would be to accompany a divisional sergeant and collect evidence on S.P.Betting, sly grog that sort of thing.
S.P. and sly grog?
Vice covered a lot of territory.
Who was the boss of the Vice Squad in 1956?
Ron Walden.
Who was Colin Delaney?
He was Police Commissioner.
From his name I would say he was Catholic.
Catholic, and a Papal Knight.
There were two camps-Catholic and Mason. Was there any animosity?
Two camps yes, but no animosity. Ron Walden was also Catholic. The State Government under Premier Joe Cahill was predominately Catholic.
What was Ron Walden like?
Ron Walden was a good boss. A Rugby Union forward. Represented Australia in boxing. A good fella. A fella you could talk to. Not terribly well experienced as an operative policeman, but a good administrator.
When I applied for a warrant to arrest Goossens for scandalous conduct, the crime of scandalous conduct was a common law misdemeanour and for that you have to have a warrant to arrest unless you have them in custody then you can, but I didn’t have him in custody. Customs did, but not me. I invited Customs in because I had no jurisdiction at the airport. After customs had dealt with him then I took him to C.I.B and questioned him on stuff that I knew.
You had a problem getting an offsider to accompany you. No one wanted to know.
I tried to get police from the Vice squad to accompany me because I had a heavy matter at Mascot airport involving a Knight of the Realm. When I mentioned a Knight of the Realm, whether that had any effect on my fellow officers I don’t know. But all of a sudden they had matters of court or come up with some reason that they couldn’t be at Mascot airport tomorrow, the next morning, to find this fellow-the Knight of the Realm.
So I went back to Balmain, where I was stationed, and saw the divisional sergeant, Milton Small, and told him the problem.
He said,"Alright. Who would you like to come with you?
I said," Jim Kilpatrick, if he’s available".
He said,"Well he’s on the night shift but don’t worry about that. If he’s prepared to go with you I’ll replace him".
So I saw Jim; told him exactly as I told the others- a Knight of the Realm.
"Don’t worry", he said,"I’ll be in that".
Now, Nat Craig, Customs. What did you say to him?
Well I rang Nat and told him I’d something on at the airport and the subject had prohibited imports... and I’d like somebody from customs to be there.
And he said, "I’ll get someone to come out."
I said,"No, Nat.I want you there. Because I’ll need a decision made on the spot. Not someone who has to ring you to find out what to do".
"Oh," he says.
"I don’t want an underling," I says,"Who doesn’t know what to do. I want the boss. It’s a Knight of the Realm".
After a while, he said,"I’ll be there".
What was the weather like that morning?
Aw it’d been raining heavily, but it had eased off just before his plane landed.
When he came off the plane he was wearing a velour hat at a rakish angle, his coat draped over his shoulders and carrying the briefcase. I was standing just beside the gangway and as he walked past he said "Good morning". I said "Good morning," back and followed him into reception keeping my eye on the briefcase. As soon as we were in I nodded to Jimmy Kirkpatrick and he gave the nod for an announcement to be made over the Tannoy. "Would Sir Eugene Goossens please go to the doctor’s office?"
HEADLINES ETC’

I typed out his statement, and being a smart arse I made all sorts of errors-spelling errors on every third or fourth line and, when I’d finished, got him to correct it.
Did you do this deliberately?
Yes.
Why?
So he couldn’t say he hadn’t read it.
Good one.
I’d been a detective for many years.
Now I submitted the statement in a file through Ron Walden to the Commissioner to go to the Attorney General asking for approval for a warrant... I’m still waiting for the Attorney General to tell me you can’t have one.
Now somebody from the Parliament I knew quite well, and I knew a few of them. He said,"Gee that’s some ripper photos of Eugene Goossens you got."
I said "How’n the hell did you know?"
"He said,"Aw I saw them in Parliament.
Who was this?
Aw I don’t remember now.
It wasn’t Eddie Ward?
Ah no Eddie Ward had no time for coppers. In fact he’d no time for law and order.
So anyway I was summoned with Ron Waldren to the Attorney General’s office. We were waiting in the anteroom, waiting about an hour and Ron Waldren was spitting chips. And he’s saying, not sotto voco (sic), but very loud about being kept there. And after a while Delaney storms along the corridor and I thought ‘ello, ‘ello, ‘ello.
As Cops do.
As Cops do. Any road he was in there about quarter an hour and he came out with a look of thunder on his face. He walked past the anteroom, stopped, came back, looked in and beckoned me. So I followed him out to the footpath