The ghosts of Treasury Casino and Hotel revealed

Brisbane’s Treasury building holds many mysteries, but perhaps none more scandalous and haunting than the young public servant whose disappearance shocked Australia.

The haunted history of the Treasury Casino.

From the Brisbane socialite who vanished, to the convict dungeon and the icy cold hotel room no one entered alone – these are the mysteries the Treasury Casino and Hotel buildings have hidden for over 200 years.

Built between 1886-1928, the Treasury Casino was vacated in August this year ahead of the opening of The Star’s new casino at Queen’s Wharf.

Griffith University will take over the grand building, with a new campus to open in 2027.

Crime historian and Historic Australia director Jack Sim has warned the Treasury’s new owners that the building was “well haunted”.

“In the days when the Treasury was the workplace of public servants, ghost stories abounded,” he said. “Passageways, cold corridors, creaking doors and floors, drafts and abandoned rooms fed the belief that several ghosts lurked in the building.”

The Brisbane Treasury building under construction in the late 1880s.

Construction was completed in 1928. Picture: State Library of Queensland

Mr Sim said the creepiest part of the building was the “dungeon” – a basement deep underground at the corner of William and Elizabeth streets.

“It was said the dungeon was where convicts were once chained as punishment,” he said.

Mr Sim said the grounds of Treasury Casino and Hotel was one of the “oldest continuously used sites in the city” and was once also a prisoner barracks.

But it is the story of Marjorie Norval, a 30-year-old Brisbane socialite and public servant who vanished without a trace in November 1938, that holds the most intrigue of all the buildings’ ghost stories.

On the afternoon of November 11, Marjorie was seen withdrawing a large sum of money from her bank account.

When she was finally reported missing on November 19, police discovered that Marjorie had told friends and family a variety of stories about where she was heading eight days earlier.

A “dungeon” is located under the Treasury building on the corner of William and Elizabeth streets.

She was visiting a sick relative. She was doing some “detective work” for her department.

Police found tablets containing quinine and strychnine in Marjorie’s top floor bedroom of the Albert Hotel and believed she may have took them to bring about a miscarriage

A stenographer in the Premier’s office, Marjorie was also responsible for managing the social calendar of Mrs Forgan Smith, the then-Premier’s wife.

Mr Sim said even years after Marjorie’s disappearance staff refused to enter Room 323 – Marjorie’s old office – alone.

“It was the coldest room in the hotel,” he said.

“The room was considered so spooky it was not available to guests – instead used to store cleaning equipment.”

Marjorie Norval vanished without a trace in November 1938.

Marjorie worked at the Executive Building, subsequently known as the Treasury Hotel, just a few blocks away from Parliament House.

Just four months after Marjorie disappeared, on March 24, 1939, the former speaker of the house, George Pollock – and Marjorie’s rumoured lover – was found dead in his chamber.

“Some claim Pollock took his life after learning the truth – that (Marjorie) was killed by someone high up in government,” Mr Sim said.

“Others reckon the speaker’s involvement with her may have been more complicated and he himself was murdered and his death covered up.

“Much of this was cruel gossip, unsubstantiated rumour and sensationalism, hurtful and slanderous to these public figures and their families.

“Five years after (Marjorie) vanished an inquest was held – the first ever in the absence of a body.”

The Courier-Mail front page on November 23, 1938.

An inquest found that Mr Pollock was mentally depressed because of his poor health and had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

“The discovery that Pollock had (died by suicide) was made by his daughter, Miss Ursula Irene Margaret Pollock,” The Courier-Mail wrote on Friday March 31, 1939.

Mr Sim said staff at Albert Hotel claimed they often saw men leaving Marjorie’s room early in the morning.

“Some of these men were well-known business and political figures,” he said.

The then-Premier William Forgan Smith, his wife and several of Marjorie’s male acquaintances took the stand during the 1943 inquest.

“I know she is dead,” Marjorie’s mother said when she gave evidence. “I have had a presentment.”

In the end, the coroner agreed with police. While there was no proof, it was suspected that a pregnant Marjorie had packed her pyjamas and left home with a plan.

“After Miss Norval was driven to Brisbane Central Station on the night of November 11, 1938 she went to the house of an abortionist from which she never emerged,” the coroner claimed.

Victoria Bridge, looking north across the Brisbane River towards the Treasury Building on William, in 1948.

Mr Sim said by the early 1940s public servants claimed Marjorie’s ghost wandered the third floor of the hotel at night.

“Lights were found switched on in rooms that were unoccupied, furniture moved inexplicably, curtain rods would fall to the floor, documents would be removed from locked filing cabinets. electric ceiling fans would begin to turn, taps would run, overflowing hand basins in washrooms, the scent of perfume wafted through the air, mysterious footsteps and tapping on, and even within, the walls,” Mr Sim said.

Gossips claimed Marjorie’s ghostly taps on the walls of the old Executive Building were to draw attention to the location of her corpse.

The Treasury building, pictured in 1895 by Alfred Elliot, is said to be haunted.

In the aftermath of Marjorie’s disappearance, abortionists were rounded up and questioned by detectives, bushland combed and parts of the Brisbane River dragged.

There was more tragedy when a plane used to search for the socialite crashed at Beenleigh, killing four people.

In total, police interviewed more than 1000 people as they worked the case.

Mr Sim said rumours surfaced that Marjorie’s body was fed to sharks in Moreton Bay or buried in the foundations of the Storey Bridge.

To this day her disappearance remains a mystery.

Originally published as The ghosts of Treasury Casino and Hotel revealed