The Pool Room Thief
There were some places I was definitely not allowed to enter when I was a boy growing up on Box Hill, my old home town in Melbourne, Victoria.
One place I was not allowed to go to was Mac Robertson’s Milk Bar in Main Street. I always thought Mr. Mac Robertson was a very wealthy man because his name was on blocks of chocolate MacRobertson’s Milk Chocolate. But apparently that was another Mr. MacRobertson. His milk bar was out of bounds because of a lot of men went there to buy packets of Wrigleys chewing gum and talk to Macca. They all carried “The Sporting Globe” and had rolled up copies of the racing pages in their back pockets. Young Macca who was at my school, told me that his Dad had three telephones in his back room, and this was at a time when no one could get their ‘phone connected in those difficult days at the end of World War II.
Macca’s place was regularly raided by the police and closed down. He made his money all right, but not from the milk bar.
The second place I was definitely not allowed to enter was the pool and billiard room. Above the top of the building, the sign said “Stan Gee’s Snooker Rooms”. They were situated above Hudson & Keens who had the impressive title of “Ironmonger and Ship’s Chandler”. I liked to go into Hudson & Keens. Their shop was a long deep one, with counters full of compartments of nails and screws, hinges and files, and real working tools for men. I used to wander round the counters looking at the variety of goods for sale.
Underneath the counters were boxes of chain, and pulleys, ends for orchardists’ sprays, discs for ploughs, pieces of horse harness, hose, and huge rat traps. I liked the box with the rat traps in it when I was six or seven years of age. One day I remember noticing that there was no one near the counter so I took out more than 20 rat traps. I used my foot to push back the hard steel trap, set about 20 of them and left them all round the edges of the counter to catch any stray rat that came along. I then just walked out. I often wondered what happened when someone discovered those rat traps.
Above Hudson & Keens was Stan Gee’s Snooker Rooms. They were dark, mysterious, evil. It was a place that was supposed to be full of bad men and loose women. All the windows were boarded up on the inside so no sunlight ever went into those rooms. Of a night time when the men went upstairs to play, there was always a man stationed at street level where the narrow outside stairs went up to the door which was the only entrance to the snooker room. A man stood guard on those stairs down at the bottom by the footpath. You had to get past him to go upstairs. He could ring a bell if anyone was approaching whom he did not like and the people upstairs could pack up whatever they were doing. He was particularly anxious to press the bell if Sergeant McLeod or any of the Box Hill police came.
My Mother and Miss Perry declared to me that it was a sly grog joint and the police should close it up. It was a blot on a decent town.
Not long after my father died, our family bakery had a series of robberies. I was eight years of age and my Mum cried a great deal. She had four children of which I was the eldest, and a newborn baby. Mother decided to carry on the business herself and bring up the family even though everybody said she could not do it. Over the next couple of years, many people tried to take her down but she always managed to survive. From 1946 to 1949 her financial position was precarious to say the least. No matter how long the hours she worked, she could not pay all of her debts in the business.
She was helped by the foreman in the bakehouse whom I called “Dave the Wave”.
Dave was a local hero. He had been away at the War up until 1946. In Papua New Guinea he was a lifesaver with the army. Before the war he was a champion swimmer at the Surrey Dive and when he enlisted he was given the task of staying beside the rivers when the foot soldiers were crossing the rivers on rope bridges. If any of them fell in with their heavy packs upon their back they could drown. Dave was always stationed there at the most dangerous place to dive in and rescue the drowning soldiers.
He was a dough maker by trade and like all dough makers had big shoulders and strong arms from bending down into the large wooden trough to hand mix the bread doughs.
He had been working with us for a couple of years since he was released from the army. I called him “Dave the Wave” because he had a high wave of hair in the front of his head. He put plenty of Californian Poppy hair oil on his hair and used the comb to create a couple of big waves in the front. He had one half gold tooth which used to shine whenever he laughed, and Dave laughed a lot. He had purchased a beautiful shining black HRD motorbike and had a sidecar specially designed for it. Dave was single and very popular with all the girls around Box Hill.
At this time our business was in more trouble than Ned Kelly. We had good staff. Miss Perry was the fore lady in the shop and took charge of all the young girls. Dave the Wave was in charge of the bakehouse and in charge of all the men and the bakers. Aunty Mabel and Mum used to work in the cream room icing and decorating all the cakes. My Mum trusted her staff.
But with the cost of wages and goods so high there was not any profit in the business. Mum was especially troubled about the cost of all of our supplies for the bakery. Dave the Wave had offered to run the business for Mum and had even offered to be her partner. But Mum was determined to run the business by herself.
Often of a night she would sit at the table in our kitchen looking at all the bills for our supplies, amazed at how much she had to pay for all of the boxes of butter and margarine, bags of sugar, flour, chocolate, and boxes of sultanas and raisins that we would use in a month.
One day Mum said to Dave the Wave, “I’ve been keeping a careful check on all of our stock. We are using far too much stock. We could not possibly have used all of the boxes of butter that we ordered in last month.”
Dave said we had. He said that if you wanted to make a good product you had to use good materials.
“No” said Mum, “I’ve been keeping check of all of our stock and someone is systematically stealing it.”
Dave was shocked. Then he told Mum that once or twice he suspected that someone might be stealing our supplies and in fact he had even considered who might be the culprit. Dave said the culprit was German Joe.
German Joe was the man who delivered our supplies. Twice a week he came in his truck and brought us big round tins of cooking oil and boxes of margarine and butter, boxes of sultanas and raisins, yeast and sugar everything used in a bakery and a cake shop except flour.
Dave said he thought German Joe might have a key to our back door which he could use at night before the early morning bakers arrived.
German Joe was a big man with a huge walrus moustache. He always had a pipe in the corner of his mouth. He had been missing for some years during the war. Some people had said that German Joe had been interned with other Germans while others said that he had just hidden in the bush. The men in our bakehouse used to call him “German Joe” which infuriated him “I am not German,” he said, “I am Austrian!” But the boys in the bakehouse said “Once a German, always a German.”
I used to like German Joe and whenever his truck arrived I would run out the back lane to greet him. He always said the same thing “Young Mick, what hav I in dis pocket?” And I would reply with enthusiasm “ETA peanuts.”
And he would take a packet out of his pocket and give it to me. Joe used to distribute the oils for the bakery and other ETA products and he always brought a packet of peanuts for me.
However, after this they watched German Joe carefully. One day Dave asked if he could unlock the back door for them but German Joe said he did not have any keys that would fit our place. Dave was sure he was coming back at night time after he had made a delivery. So one night Mum and Dave the Wave spent the whole night sitting outside in the backyard of the bank next door looking through the fence waiting to see German Joe come back at night to let himself in to steal our goods. But nothing happened.
We never caught German Joe stealing anything. But whenever he came near the place we all watched him very carefully and counted the goods he brought in on his trolley and made sure he did not take any out. All the boys in the bakehouse likewise kept their eye on him for, as Dave said “You can never trust a Kraut”.
Just before Christmas we had a whole lot of goods stolen from the store room. The business was at a crisis. Mum was not doing too well at all. It looked like she could not continue. She had to take Dave in as a partner or perhaps sell out to him or someone else. Mum would sit in the kitchen of a night worrying over the accounts. She had been up since 5.30 in the morning and always looked tired. Sometimes I would peep at her through the keyhole and just see her sitting at the table with her head in her hands.
One night I was on my way home from cubs, just before Christmas time. It was still early and not yet dark. I passed Hudson & Keens in Whitehorse Road when I noticed that there was no ‘cockatoo’ at the foot of the stairs leading up to the snooker room.
If ever I was to see inside the billiard saloon it was going to be this night. I climbed the high flight of stairs up the outside of the building to the door that opened into the terrible Box Hill pool hall. I opened the door and went inside. It was very dark inside. There were four full sized tables with low lights over each table. Around the lights was a fringe covered in fly spots. The green baize shone brightly in the light and the coloured balls stood out. From the ceiling hung twisted sticky paper fly catchers which were black with flies.
The room was filled with cigarette smoke and men were standing around drinking sly grog. I did not see any loose women. Each table had several players standing around it, some of them leaning on their billiard cues. There were four or five beer glasses lined up around the edges of each table and on the wall there was a sign which said
“Gentlemen! Please do not place your glasses on the tables.”
I looked around. Not much activity apart from drinking. No loose women, just fellows talking. Then over against the wall I noticed Dave the Wave talking to another man who was counting out money. Dave the Wave was checking it and putting it into his wallet. I walked over to him and touched him on the arm. “G’day Dave,” I said. “God! What in hell are you doing here? Get out of here before your mother finds out. She’ll kill you.” Dave looked angry. I headed for the door and went down the stairs.
Half way down those stairs was a level landing. I stopped on the landing. I suddenly remembered what I had seen on the floor of the billiard saloon between the legs of Dave the Wave and his mate. It was a box two foot high, eighteen inches wide and about nine inches deep. It had black lettering along the side. I had seen that black lettering many times. It said
” Padlock” Brand
Sunraysia Sultanas.
Product of Australia.
56 lbs.”
That box was the same as boxes we had in our bakery store.
I told Mum as soon as I got home.
The next night was Christmas Eve. Mum had been worrying and saying that if things did not get better by Christmas she would have to sell the business. She asked Dave the Wave to come and see her that night at our house. Dave came in late with two bottles of beer and some parcels. Mum sent us off to bed straight away. Robbie and I slept in our dining room. We had two beds there as well as tables and chairs. We pushed one of the beds up to the door to look through the keyhole into the kitchen taking turns to see what was happening.
Dave’s parcels were for us. There was a box of chocolates for Mum, a box with a balsawood plane for me and some other things for the other kids.
Mum looked grim. “Dave, I’ve found out who has been stealing the supplies from the storeroom and I found out how. I went up the side laneway past the girls toilets to the back wall of our store where you park your motorbike and sidecar. Your footprints were in some mud Dave. I know it does not prove anything but I guessed the goods were going out the high window in the back wall of the storeroom, Dave. So yesterday I sprinkled some flour along the inside ledge of the window. This morning I found the flour had been pushed out and was on the ground beneath the window. Someone had been passing stores out that window Dave someone who was very strong and who could lift the stores up over his head and out of the window into the lane. It was you Dave. You have been stealing from me, and taking away the goods in your side car.”
Dave shouted in disgust “You’re stupid. I’d never do a thing like that. I wanted to be your partner. I wouldn’t steal from you.”
“You did, Dave” Mum continued, “I can prove it. I dusted flour over the window pane and we’ve got a perfect set of fingerprints. The detectives told me this afternoon they would have no trouble in proving who belonged to those fingerprints.”
“Damn you” said Dave, dusting his hands very self consciously. “You’re too damn smart for your own good. Damn those detectives.”
Mum looked at him as cold as steel. “The keys, Dave. Give me your keys. I want all of them, all of the keys to the shop and the bakehouse. You’re finished, Dave. I don’t ever want to see you again.”
Dave the Wave threw the keys on the table, swore at Mum and said a lot more. He grabbed one of the bottles of beer and walked out slamming the door. I would not see him again for twenty years and then, when I saw him, he was beefy, looking alcoholic, with thinning hair still mounted up in a wave, standing outside a small bakery in a country town.
Robbie and I kept looking at the keyhole. Mum sat down at the table, her head in her hands and burst into deep sobs.
Robbie and I pushed the bed back from the door and went out to comfort her. I said to her “When did you get the detectives in? That was a smart move, to get his fingerprints.”
Mum looked at me and slowly said “I didn’t. I was only bluffing him. I thought he would fall for it.”
After Christmas the business ran more profitably. In fact every year after was more profitable than the one before. My mother went on to be a significant business woman in the town of Box Hill, but I always remember that night when Mum bluffed a thief and I found the evidence in the Box Hill billiard saloon.
And yet I used to think Dave the Wave was the most fantastic man I’d ever met in my life and I often thought about him and how he used to rescue the soldiers during the war, when I walked home up Devon Street, opposite the cow paddock, to No.55 Birdwood Street, Box Hill, a great city which was only a village where the adults were kind and where the children grew up responsibly.
GORDON MOYES
