Crowley and Pearl left Cumberland Terrace just before Christmas 1933, and Crowley checked in to the Cumberland Hotel on 20 December. He didn't like it, and although he seems to have been with Pearl he wrote “Oh so bloody lonely! I cannot stand the Cumberland any more.” In slightly higher spirits, he thought the hotel was geared towards a ‘sales rep’ lifestyle. Quoting Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, he wrote that it was “run on the assumption that every ‘traveller from the cradle to the grave through the dim night of this immortal day’ is a Commercial Traveller.”
This was the beginning a welter of short-term addresses largely in the Marylebone area, including the Grand Central Hotel.1 On 11 June he took considerably less grand digs at 21 Upper Montagu Street, Marylebone, near Montagu Square. There is a side door by the corner with Crawford Street, behind the Victorian chemist's shop of Meacher, Thomas and Higgins, still there with its beautiful Victorian wall-lamp just by Crowley's door.
He was with Pearl, who wrote from this address to an American disciple “The money question is the very devil, isn't it?”. They weren't here long, but it was the address given in widely syndicated reportage of his arrest for receiving stolen letters (“Explorer Granted Bail”).
Edward Alexander Crowley (58), who was described on the charge sheet as an explorer, of Upper Montagu Street, London, was accused at Marylebone Police Court, to-day, of feloniously receiving five letters, the property of Betty Sedgwick. He was remanded until Thursday, bail being allowed in the sum of £10.
Crowley had been arrested in Kerman's office at Carlos Place, after buying some stolen letters for five pounds from a Captain Eddie Cruze. These letters were the property of Betty May, from whose flat at 1 Seymour Street, Marylebone, Cruze had stolen them (he seems to have lived in the same building). They contained accounts of Cefalu that Crowley thought would help his forthcoming appeal against Nina Hamnett and the firm of Constable, in which May was likely to be called again as a witness.