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Correspondence from Fernando Pessoa to Karl Germer
[1 October 1930]
Karl Germer, Esq., Lietzenseeufer 9 Berlin-Charlottenburg
Dear Sir:
I thank you for your letter of the 25th. September and for the prospectus enclosed. I had, however, already received another copy from England, so, lest yours may be wanted over there, I shall return it to you to-morrow.
I received yesterday morning your telegram of the 29th. Saying, "Telegraph what happened also prospects capitalization". I replied as the enclosed carbon-copy shows, and I must explain why I replied so late.
The fact is that, when Mr. Crowley's disappearance became known (your telegram shows that it has come out in the German papers, and, indeed, the Press Agencies here have all, I think, cabled it out), the matter was taken over by the Criminal Investigation Police, with whom it still lies. This being so, I could not send out any telegram on the subject without the authority of the Head of that Police; he was not in yesterday afternoon, when I first looked him up, and, as I was able to speak to him only this forenoon, it was not till the early afternoon that I was enabled to reply to your telegram.
I shall write you to-morrow at greater length, giving you all the available data on the subject, which, as far as I can see, is only yet in its first phase, since there are weekly papers—so I have just been informed—which are going to take it up, and these are, for a case like this, the more important ones. As I said in my telegram, issues have been extraordinarily confused, and no definite conclusion has been arrived at, either by the Police, or by anybody else. The Police—so its Head told me today—do not believe that suicide has been committed, but they have no definite counter-suggestion to offer. They first based their doubt of suicide on the fact that the International Police gave note of Crowley having passed the frontier on the 23rd., but the fact is that the Head of the Criminal Investigation, when I to-day spoke to him, did not return to this point. He said that the Police did not believe in suicide "because the body had not turned up". Naturally, I could not ask him what led him thus implicitly to set aside the statement of the International Police.
Not knowing to whom to send the letters for Mr. Crowley which I have been receiving from Cook's, I suggested to Dr. Albequerque, Head of the Criminal Investigation, that perhaps, since, by your previous interest, revealed in your telegram, you were a close friend of Mr. Crowley, the best thing might be to send the letters on to you. To this he agreed, and I am therefore enclosing the following letters:
2 letters from Mandrake Press, 1 letter from yourself, 1 telegram (No. 8818, 4 letters with handwritten addresses, 1 letter with typewritten address A.E. Crowley, 1 letter from Meyer & Mortimer, Ltd., 1 letter in long legal envelope, which (according to instructions) I opened, having with-drawn from it the prospectus I was to take out.
Apart from these eleven items, two parcels of books were also received. I am retaining these, as I presume they contain the books which Mr. Crowley had asked the Mandrake Press (from whom they come) to send to me.
The capitalization is necessarily suspended until something definite develops out of all this trouble. I may add, however, that the man I had to speak to will not be back in Lisbon till the end of this month, so it would not have gone forward anyway what ever might have or have not happened.
By the bye, Mr. Crowley had told me that perhaps Mr. Hyde might be in Berlin by this time. If he is, please ask him not to emerge yet on this business until I advise him. I wish to have time to handle it carefully and bring it to a really successful conclusion. Capital is none too easy to obtain now and here; and, at any rate, all is held up by the man's absence, even if it were not delayed by Crowley's suicide, or, at any rate, very untoward disappearance.
Yours sincerely,
Fernando Pessoa
12 enclosures.
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