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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Gerald Yorke
[on the stationary of the Savoy Hotel, London]
June 7 [1935?]
C∴[are] F∴[rater]
93.
Got your note, and dropped in for a small lunch to answer it.
I have no idea of Bill's [Bertha Busch] present address. But: you would not have written to her spontaneously, so she must have written to you. And this can only have been at the instigation of George Bentley, in pursuance of some plan to blackmail you. G.B. is in the Dave Philips and Alan Buet class as a ponce and swindler, but just a shade on the brutal side (He says he was middleweight champion of the Army) on Good Friday night he beat up Bill good and hearty—a five hours' job. She was in bed with a vet and bandages for a week: thought at first her spleen was ruptured. You see, the poor old drunken prostitute—who has you to thank for dropping back to that after I had rescued her—cannot get men any more. So Bentley beats her more, and it does not improve a woman's allure (in some men's eyes) if her face is a purplish pulp. I tried to help her again, but Bentley robs her of every penny, so I gave up: until he goes back to prison once more.
They even tried to blackmail Parsons! and staged their "bloody bastard" act in the office. Not a remunerative effort. Then they went to the Official Receiver, and told him the whole damning truth about all the enormous sums of money that I have been banking "in Spain or Portugal." General joy in court! Also some applause when I described you to the Registrar, ending "Since then he has never dared to show his face". Nor did John Whithers contradict.
By the way, your treachery has not only robbed me of the American Stock (among other things) but enabled some particularly dirty scoundrels to defraud some thousands of people in the name of the Order. I think you well deserve what is coming to you.
Well, I hope you've put in some decent work to balance things up a bit—
I have a jolly little flat with a shaded garden all to myself. It's curious how every dirty trick you play on me turns in the end to my advantage. So perhaps even this last American villainy! Who knows?
I quaff this third and last Denis Maurice '75 to your health.
93 93/93
F∴[raternal]ly
666.
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