On the morning of Thursday, 29 October 1931, Sydneysiders opened up the pages
of the Sydney Morning Herald to read the
following article about a drug trafficking court case:
The story of how a man carrying 3,000
veronal tablets fell into a trap set by Detective-sergeant Wickham, of the Drug
Bureau, was given at the Central Police Court yesterday. Trevor Grafton Smith,
24, accountant, admitted he was attempting to dispose of the veronal at a
chemist’s shop in the city when intercepted by Detective-sergeant Wickham.
Smith was giving evidence against Lars Olaf Grebst, 26, described as a
journalist, who was charged with having solicited Smith to obtain possession of
veronal. Grebst was fined 250 pounds, in default 500 days’ imprisonment.
Smith said that he had been living in
the same house as Grebst, and had known him for some months. Grebst one day
asked him whether he could dispose of some veronal and arranged for him to meet
Franz Schrader, whom he described as a “determined looking German”. Witness met
Schrader several times and on October 21 was handed a large cardboard box
containing 3,000 veronal tablets. He walked from Hunter Street to a chemist’s
shop in another part of the city with Schrader following about 10 to 15 paces
behind him. As soon as he walked into the shop he was arrested by
Detective-sergeant Wickham. Witness and Grebst were each to receive a “cut”
from the proceeds of the sale.
Gertrude Elizabeth Driver said that she
had lived with Grebst for about two years. She had seen him smoking opium, and
he had told her that he had been engaged in the drug traffic in South Africa
and China, and had been sentenced in both countries. Only three weeks ago
Grebst asked her whether she knew anything about veronal. She replied that she
did not, and he told her that he wanted to know what effect it had on the
person who took it.
Grebst: Did you not tell me that you
would perjure your soul to get me five years in gaol?
Witness: No.
Grebst, who stated that he had worked
his passage to Australia from Sweden, gave evidence that he married in May
last, but was unable to support his wife. When Schrader asked him whether he
could “get rid of some veronal”, he declined to have anything to do with it.
Addressing the Magistrate, he said that
Smith, who had been caught red-handed, was trying to pull him into the case,
because he (Smith) had been told that if he could prove he was somebody else’s
tool, he would get a lighter sentence. Mrs Driver’s evidence had been spite
because of his marriage.
Franz Schrader, 39, salesman, was
charged with having had veronal in his possession on October 22.
Detective-sergeant Wickham said that he searched Schrader’s flat at Bondi early
in the morning of October 22. He said to Schrader, “I have been informed that
you have 12,000 veronal tablets to dispose of.” Schrader replied, “I don’t know
anything about veronal.” Witness found a bottle of aspirin in the bathroom, and
two white tablets near the bed. Schrader said, “They are aspirin.” Witness
examined them and found that some were marked “aspirin” but others were plain.
He had them analysed and found that the plain ones were veronal tablets.
The hearing was adjourned until
Wednesday next, when a charge against Smith of having had veronal in his
possession will also be heard.
Sydney is a well-known haunt of crooked accountants and in a
famous episode in the 1970s, many of them used the bottom of the harbour as a
filing cabinet for their incriminating documents. Trevor Smith was not the last
dodgy bean-counter Erikson would become mixed up with in his time hanging
around the Sydney underworld. The veronal case – which saw Erikson go to jail –
is dealt with in chapter 11 of The Rhythm
of the Shoe entitled “Lifer’s Lane.” In this chapter, he seems to blame his
own cowardly insecurity and exaggerated lying for his demise. He writes:
… my line with women was always one of
swashbuckling. The tales I used to tell about myself were usually connected with
smuggling on the high seas. My repertoire was terrific. In fact, the only
smuggling I had ever done was on a lake called Bodensee. This lake nestles
between Switzerland, Austria and Germany. My smuggling consisted of catching a
ferry at Bregenz in Austria, travelling the few miles across to Lindau in
Germany and returning. In Lindau I bought three packets of cigarettes and
smoked them in Austria. To me, at the time, it was terribly romantic and
daring. Although this was my only smuggling venture it served as the basis for
some of the most hair-raising stories I have ever invented. The worst part of
telling adventure stories is that you have to improve on them all the time. If
you don’t, you get so sick of them yourself, that you can’t bear repeating
them. At least that is what happens to me. After years of enlarging on my tales
of buccaneering there was not a single type of bastardry that I had not
committed. How these lies can backfire on one is best illustrated by [the
veronal case].[1]
Erikson’s version is that his friend – Smith the accountant
– had asked him to get veronal tablets for trafficking. Erikson actually had no
idea what veronal was. But having previously painted himself as a big opium
smuggler, his ego made him agree to get the stuff. In truth, he had no
intention of lifting a finger. Three weeks later, he was suddenly arrested.
Smith had got veronal from somewhere and been caught red-handed trying to hock
it in a chemist’s shop. He had named Erikson rather than disclose his real
supplier. The police had no bother at all finding witnesses to say that Erikson
had told them he was a drug smuggler. The worst was an ex-girlfriend – Gertrude
Driver – whom he had once told that he smoked opium. Erikson had not been
defended by a lawyer, thinking it unnecessary if he just went in and told the
truth. He argues he would never have been convicted if he had had a lawyer.
Certainly, he may not have been aware that the English-Australian legal system
is adversarial and judges do not see it as their role to make a party’s case
for him, that being precisely the function of the lawyer.
In The Rhythm of the
Shoe, Erikson says his marriage was only five weeks old at the time of his
conviction on 28 October 1931. This is another one of those memory lapses
evident in the book. It was more like five months. His marriage certificate
shows that he married Diana Constance Jenkins at St John’s Church,
Darlinghurst, Sydney on 27 May 1931. Her occupation was listed as
“stenographer” and his as “hunter.” Their address was Rockwall Crescent, Pott’s
Point. Erikson’s father was noted as “deceased” and his mother’s name as “Wally
Amalia Klatzö.” Erikson married four times and Diana Constance was wife number
one. In The Rhythm of the Shoe, he
does not name any of his wives but describes number one as “a blue-ribbon
nymphomaniac” with an “insatiable sexual appetite” that reduced him “almost to
a gibbering wreck” such that he was relieved to be sent to jail. He expected
her to pay the 250-pound fine because she had 500 pounds of his money but she
abandoned him instead. According to the newspaper report, Erikson stated in
court that he had been unable to support his wife so the notion of her holding
500 pounds of his money seems more than a little incongruous. The only
reasonable conclusion I can come to is that Erikson is lying or exaggerating in
his book in true Grebst style. In any event, he went to prison feeling “alone
and deserted and full of hate.”
The “Lifer’s Lane” chapter in The Rhythm of the Shoe is Erikson’s writing at its best. Playful,
insightful, poignant. I defy anyone to read it without shedding a tear. A true
raconteur, Erikson was deeply interested in the human condition and how people
cope with extreme trials and tribulations. In prison, he edited an illegal
newspaper for inmates, each edition featuring one of the “lifer” murderers. He
couldn’t resist penning and publishing a derogatory poem about the Governor that
made its way to the Governor’s desk. Luckily for Erikson, the subject of the
poem didn’t seem too offended by it and let him off with a caution.
Whatever lessons the 1931 veronal case taught Erikson at the
time, it didn’t seem to stop him cultivating a reputation as a smuggler. Not
even after his name-change in 1939. Intriguing evidence of this is found in the
diary of the painter, Donald Friend (1915-1989). On 10 July 1946, a day when
Friend was working on the
painting “Woman with two tired children,” he noted in his diary:
Then at night to one of those boring but not
unpleasant cocktail parties. Kirsova was there, the smuggler Hans Erikson
(still at large) and Alice Danciger. Also the French-Dutch critic Konyn, with
whom I got on very well, and with whom I returned home to sit drinking and
talking till late. We have in common many tastes and certain vices.[2]
Still at large?
I assume Friend was taken in by Erikson’s hair-raising tales of smuggling on
the high seas. And I can’t help but reflect how annoyed Uncle Willy would have
been to learn that his nephew was mixing with non-traditional painters akin to
Zorn and Liljefors back in Sweden. To say nothing of Friend’s “vices” in the
form of paedophilia!
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