We’re back in the 1930s for the next book that made up the Secret of the Old Clock game — Nancy #2, The Hidden Staircase! You’ll recall that the end of the Secret of the Old Clock book promised that this case would be “far more baffling” than the previous. If it’s not, I’m writing to the Sears catalog for my fifty cents back!
Nancy Drew is hanging around her house, alone, musing about how she just so happens to sense that something big is going to happen soon. It’s almost as if she’s the protagonist of a novel and the story is starting. She looks over at Josiah Crowley’s clock on her mantel and thinks about how gosh-darn fun it was to ditch her friend at Moon Lake and get locked in a closet and publicly humiliate her mortal enemies, and oh, how she hopes she can do it again!
Nancy’s wish is answered straightaway, as there’s as knock on the door. Some dude named Nathan Gombet is there, and he’s not at all happy with Carson Drew. We immediately know he’s a suspicious character, as his clothes are “several seasons out of style” and “Nancy couldn’t help but notice several grease spots on his coat.” Heh. I’m sure she couldn’t. Anyway, as his appearance suggests, he’s gauche and rude, elbowing his way into the house and proceeding to poke through all their stuff, claiming that Carson Drew has cheated him out of some money and he knows the proof is here!!! Nancy trails after him, protesting that Carson has never done anything wrong in his life, ever (except for that time he sent an innocent dude to jail and was dating an arsonist) and he won’t find any incriminating evidence here and he’s just crazy if he thinks he will! Nancy, dude, why are you still entertaining him? CALL THE POLICE.
Gombet finally makes his way into Carson’s study to rifle through his papers, at whihc point Nancy’s like, “Gosh, he’s just not leaving!” and makes for the phone. Gombet blocks her path and gets his threat on and it’s actually quite scary! This is why we don’t let random men into our house, Nancy! She manages to grab the phone and Gombet immediately starts wibbling that he’ll leave as long as she doesn’t call the cops. Nancy agrees and he leaves, then she…still doesn’t call the police. “I almost wish I had,” she thinks to herself. Then…do it? He’s not in your house anymore! You can do what you want!
Anyway, she muses to herself that Gombet might cause trouble for the Drews — clearly, he’s intent on besmirching the good name of Carson Drew, and “undiscerning persons” might believe the rumors! I don’t know, Nancy, I’d be more worried about the part where he was intent on breaking your face if you hadn’t gotten to the phone. Seriously, why hasn’t she called the police?
Introduction time: blah blah Nancy Drew is sixteen years old with Pacific Ocean blue eyes and a perfect size six figure a curly golden bob and a lawyer father and a deceased mother and a housekeeper-slash-mother figure named Hannah; being motherless has made her ever so resourceful and logical and she helps her father on his cases sometimes, and indeed, she’s even started solving her own cases, such as when she had “taken it upon her slender shoulders” to solve the secret of the old clock, which made her such lifelong friends as the Horner sisters and Abigail Rowan. Wait, are we acknowledging the characters from the previous book? They haven’t simply disappeared into the ether now that Nancy no longer has need of them?
Speaking of, Allie Horner swings by to say hello, and the book not-at-all-briefly recounts how she and her sister Grace used to be poor and malnourished, but thanks to Nancy Drew, they came into their inheritance and are now rolling in chicken and dressmaking money, which has made Allie “becomingly plump.” Somewhere, Bess Marvin is seething. Then Allie gives Nancy some eggs and Nancy goes on a spiel about how farm-fresh eggs are better and how you just can’t trust you’re getting quality eggs from the store because they say they’re fresh but sometimes they lie and GUYS, CAN WE GET MOVING HERE.
Finally, Nancy tells Allie about Gombet, whom Allie knows because of course she does. She tells Nancy that Gombet is a No Good Very Bad Guy who’s always making trouble. His most recent antics are that he sold some land to the town to build a bridge; he then started complaining that the bridge crossed into some of the land he didn’t sell and he’s been trying to extort more money out of the city council ever since. He’s even threatened to blow up the bridge if they don’t pay him.
Allie leaves and Nancy decides to go with her, then walk back. Allie shows off her new “roadster” to Nancy but admits driving will be slow going, as she’s unfamiliar with all the newfangled controls. Heh. The future is now! On her walk back, Nancy sees the new bridge and thinks about how horrible and dangerous it would be if someone blew it up. I will spoil it and tell you that the bridge does not, in fact, get blown up.
Nathan Gombet comes back while Carson is at home to yell at him some more. Carson was apparently involved in the bridge deal in some paper-signing capacity, and Gombet blames him for how little he was paid for the land. Carson tells him his land was shitty and worthless and kicks him out, and Gombet swears revenge. Carson dismisses this, but Nancy frets that he’s going to do something drastic.
Some time passes and Nancy forgets about Gombet, but the omniscient narrator reassures us that he’s still out there plotting revenge, lest we think this book doesn’t have a plot or something.
Nancy goes to visit Abigail Rowan, blah blah she was poor and miserable until the advent of Nancy Drew solving all her problems and now she’s middle-class and happy blah. Abigail has a visitor, one Rosemary Turnbull, who lives in the nearby town of Cliffwood — which just so happens to be the same town Gombet lives in, not that anyone twigs to that at this point. Rosemary lives in an old house with her twin sister (“Floretta”), and recently, strange things have been happening: they’ve had a rat infestation out of nowhere; they’ve been hearing noises and seeing shadows; and one night they heard someone playing music randomly. Oh my God, they’re being haunted by the Phantom of the Opera.
Nancy asks if there’s been anyone strange hanging around the house, and Rosemary tells her that an organ grinder recently came by, though he doesn’t think he was suspicious. Nancy suggests the organ grinder’s monkey might have broken into the house. The absolute casualness with which they’re entertaining this idea is killing me. The 20th century was a different time, man.
Abigail volunteers Nancy to solve Rosemary’s case; Nancy’s like, “Okay, I’m not a super sleuth yet and I’m not sure about this, but thanks, I guess.” She does admit that she’s intrigued and goes to the house to investigate. As soon as they arrive, Floretta tells them that something terrible happened while Rosemary was away: her diamond bar pin is missing! She had put it on the dresser when she heard “the iceman” at the door (the 20th century was a different time, again, some more) and briefly left to let him in. When she came back, the pin was gone! Nancy inspects the room and notes that there was no real way for someone to get into the room, unless they were already nearby in the house. She and the sisters wonder if someone has been lurking and spying on them.
Nancy agrees to take the case and spend the night at the house — with her father’s permission, of course. She drives back to River Heights and tells her father all about the case. He’s reluctant to let her stay the night in a creepy old house, but Nancy’s like, “Well, if it were you, you wouldn’t be afraid to stay there!” Instead of being like, “Yeah, but I’m a forty-year-old dude and you’re a sixteen-year-old girl,” Carson’s like, “Damn, can’t argue with that” and agrees to let her stay with the Turnbulls. He’s going to Chicago for a week anyway, so Nancy can stay with the Turnbulls while he’s gone. “Goody! Goody!” Nancy pranced wildly about the room. Indeed. Carson also gives Nancy his revolver just in case the ghost turns out to be “livelier” than expected, and tells her that if she can’t solve the case, he’ll come over to Cliffwood once he gets back from his trip and take over. He promises to telegraph(!) her with his itinerary.
A few days later, Nancy drops her father off at the train station — where he makes a mad dash “for the Pullman cars”, as one did in the 20th century, I guess — and decides to visit Helen Corning. When we last saw Helen, Nancy was using her friendship as an excuse to visit Moon Lake, thinking all the while that it was so annoying that Helen was trying to hang out with her while Nancy was trying to bust crime. Presumably in revenge, Helen makes Nancy stay for an afternoon of tennis, then makes her stay for dinner, then makes her stay after dinner for board games or whatever. She’s like, “Hey, Nancy, it kinda hurt my feelings when you totally ditched me in the last book, can you take me along next time you solve a mystery? We could be a duo! We could call ourselves the Clue Crew!” Nancy blows her off, thinking that Helen is way too gossipy to be a good sidekick. Aw. Rough life, Helen.
Despite the book suggesting that Helen holds Nancy hostage well into the night, when Nancy gets back, it’s still early enough for Hannah to go out for a “moving picture show”, leaving Nancy alone in the house. Someone rings the doorbell and leaves a note on the porch, telling Nancy to stay away from the Turnbull house. Nancy muses over who could’ve sent the note, “the very picture of a pretty girl in a brown study over some knotty problem.” Thanks, book, I was ever so worried Nancy might’ve looked unattractive for a second there. (Also, the grammar of that sentence baffled me, and as it turns out, “brown study” is an old-timey phrase for thinking about something. The more you know.) Anyway, Nancy thinks the handwriting in the note looks like man’s. Well, gosh, can we think of a man who’s been threatening Nancy recently?
The next day, Nancy heads over to the Turnbulls’, and of course her presence immediately has a “wholesome effect” on the sisters, because Nancy Drew is better than you. They tell her more weird stuff happened last night; namely, they heard music again, which they think was a guitar. The culprit was making them listen to his cover of Wonderwall? That is villainous. The sisters tell Nancy they didn’t breathe a word of her coming to anyone, although they did discuss it among themselves. Nancy gasps that perhaps the culprit has a way of listening in on them — perhaps through the use of a secret passage? She searches the house, but doesn’t find anything, although she has the sense she overlooked something in the attic. She also notes that the sofa in the sitting room is weird — it’s built into the wall — but dismisses it for now.
A few days pass with nothing happening, but one night Nancy hears a yell. She and the sisters immediately investigate — Nancy with her revolver at the ready — but don’t catch the culprit, who’s made off with the sisters’ valuable silver urn in the library. Everyone stands around musing that there’s just no way the culprit could’ve come in through the windows or doors — how could they have possibly gotten in? Nancy, to her credit, has figured out that there’s a secret passageway somewhere, but just can’t figure out where. She notes that the library has a similar built-in sofa as the sitting room, but doesn’t put two and two together.
As the days pass, Nancy starts thinking that this mystery might be too much for her, and decides to just let her dad solve it when he gets back. Heh. Come on, Nancy, what kind of example are we setting for the girls of the 1930s right now? She also realizes that Carson hasn’t telegraphed, as promised, and frets that something that might’ve happened to him. She goes to town to find a telegraph office(!) and sends a wire to Chicago asking after her father. The reply comes pretty quickly, saying that her father left two days ago. Nancy gasps that he ought to have returned by now, and trouble must have befallen him! I mean…whatever, I’ve spent a lot of time with Carson Drew over the course of thirty games, and I cannot say I’m too upset over the thought of him being taken out.
That evening, some of Floretta’s dresses are stolen, because I guess the thief is into fashion now. They’ve also left two canaries behind (on accident? as a calling card?), but nobody can figure out the significance of them. Even Nancy is kinda embarrassed that the culprit keeps breaking into the house right under her nose. She finally gets the idea to ask the sisters if anyone might have reason to scare them away, and the sisters muse that some people have been interested in buying the house: a few legit real estate dudes, but also one Nathan Gombet. Nancy’s like, “What a coincidence!” Could the guy who’s been creeping around and threatening the Drews also be creeping around and threatening the Turnbull sisters?
Cut to: a chapter entitled “What Happened to Carson Drew,” from Carson’s POV. Book, did I ever give the impression that I wanted to know what Carson Drew was thinking? Well, anyway, Carson has finished up his business in Chicago early, and he telegraphs Nancy, letting her know he’ll be back soon. Alas, “he did not dream that the telegram would never reach Nancy. It was destined to fall into the hands of an enemy.” Er…somehow? I don’t know how intercepting a telegram would work; I’m a child of the 1990s, not the 1890s. Anyway, let’s not rush into the action or anything; the book takes some time to describe Carson enjoying a cigar and hanging about his Pullman car, as one does. He gets a response from “Nancy”, saying that she’ll meet him at the train station, but when he arrives, she’s nowhere to be seen. Nathan Gombet pops up and tells Carson that Nancy’s been horribly injured — she ran her roadster into a ditch near Gombet’s house and is there recovering. If Carson gets into his car, Gombet will take him to her! Carson wibbles over how such a thing could happen: “Nancy was always such a safe driver,” he says. Heh. Is she, Carson? In total fairness to Gombet, lame as his ruse is, Nancy crashing her car is an entirely plausible scenario.
Anyway, of course Nancy isn’t injured. Gombet lures Carson inside his house, then traps and locks him inside a room, cackling that he intercepted his and Nancy’s telegrams and they’ll never find each other! However, all Carson has to do is fork over the money Gombet wants for his land (a mere twenty thousand; about $400k in 2020s money), and Gombet will let him go. Carson tries to escape, but Gombet pulls a gun on him. He cackles some more that if Carson won’t give in, Gombet will “dope” Nancy and lock her up in here, too. Carson frets that he can’t bear for anything to happen to Nancy and wonders if he ought to simply give in. Huh. On the one hand, I suppose it’s nice to see Carson caring about Nancy; on the other hand, I’ve seen him sit back and do nothing while Nancy was bailing herself out of jail and dodging international terrorists, so I’m kind of losing respect for him for selling out so fast.
(If you’re wondering where the ’30s racism in this book is, there’s several mentions of Gombet’s servant, a “fat, slovenly colored woman” whose speech is peppered with “suh”s and “dis heah”s.)
Nancy wastes several days fretting over her father and doing nothing, but finally one day asks the Turnbull sisters where Gombet lives. As it turns out, he’s been living in a house like two yards behind the Turnbulls’ home the entire time. The two houses were built by a pair of brothers who used to be close, but had a falling out over the Civil War — as you do — with one brother supporting the Union and the other supporting the Confederacy. The Confederate-supporting brother died fighting in the war, and had also given his entire fortune to “the cause” (embarrassing), so the home was sold off to pay his debts after he died. It eventually fell into Gombet’s hands; the sisters note that he doesn’t have any family that they know of, and he only lives with his servant: “A colored woman who looks as though she were an ogre,” Rosemary says. I mean…well, I guess I shouldn’t expect anything else from an old lady in the 1930s, but jeez, let’s slow our roll on the racism.
Floretta adds that Gombet also keeps birds, including canaries. Oh, you mean like those two birds that the culprit left in the house the other day? Nancy thankfully twigs to this, although she’s still soooo confused as to how Gombet is getting into the house. Er, Nancy, don’t you already know there’s a secret tunnel somewhere? Come on. Anyway, Nancy decides she needs to break into Gombet’s house to figure out what he’s up to.
(By the way, from what I can remember, this bit — a tunnel between two houses built by a pair of brothers — is the only part of the original book that made it into the game.)
Nancy sets out that very night, and what a coincidence, Gombet picks the same night to leave the house. Nancy sneaks inside and has to dodge Gombet’s servant; there’s a solid, like, ten pages of racist commentary on how fat and colored and ugly the servant is. Eventually, Nancy discovers the secret passageway between the houses and another ten pages ensues of her almost getting lost and oh no she’s fallen down some stairs and nearly lost her flashlight and okay wait she’s found the flashlight again but there’s another flight of stairs to go up and oh no Nancy nearly falls through the stairs but then she doesn’t and now we’ve come to a fork in the passageway which way shall we go very well let’s go this way OH NO Nancy’s flashlight is dying again and whatever, the upshot of it all is that Nancy eventually ends up back in the Turnbulls’ attic. (All jokes aside, Nancy desperately trying to get out of the passageway and just continually encountering more stairs and forks is actually quite effectively creepy.) She realizes that there’s not just one secret passageway between the houses; there’s a whole maze of passageways connecting several different rooms and that’s how Gombet has been getting around.
The next day, the Turnbulls tell Nancy that Gombet has offered to buy their house again, and they’re planning to take him up on it this time — they just don’t see how they can keep living here! Nancy tells them not to give up so fast, for she’s finally figured out how Gombet’s been getting around. All three of them go poking through the house and find that the passageways open right up into Floretta’s room (which is how Gombet stole her dresses) and the library (which is how the stole the urn). The entrance, of course, is through the built-in sofas that Nancy noticed earlier. (As for the birds, Nancy suspects perhaps they just flew in through the passageway when Gombet left it open, or perhaps he brought them with him for…some reason. Sure, whatever.)
Our trio goes off in Nancy’s roadster to report all this to the sheriff. The Cliffwood cops hem and haw about how they’ve never heard anything weird about Nathan Gombet and investigating him would really cut into all the doing nothing they have planned for the day. But then! Nancy tells them she’s Carson Drew’s daughter, and they’re like, “Well, that changes everything!” No, really: “Why didn’t you say so at first?…I reckon a daughter of Carson Drew knows what she’s about. If you say Nathan Gombet is a crook, I’ll take your word for it.” I’m glad this is all it takes for them to abandon due process, I guess. (Seriously, though, Carson? I’ve met his friends, I would not call that man’s judgment unimpeachable.)
The police and the Clue Crew head back over to Gombet’s house, but the fat evil black servant threatens them with a sawed-off shotgun if they come any closer. Man, if it weren’t for the racism and egregious padding, I’d love these books for how delightfully pre-Hays Code they are. Anyway, Nancy leads the cops into Gombet’s house via the passageway instead; they get the jump on the servant and hold her up at gunpoint. Nancy and the sheriff find Gombet upstairs, taunting a malnourished Carson about how nobody is going to find him, ever, mwa ha ha! Then he turns around and sees Nancy and the cops and folds in about two minutes, confessing all: he found the passageway between his house and the Turnbulls’ by accident one day, and was indeed lurking there for the past several months — that’s how he got in to steal all their stuff and how he overhead them talking about Nancy’s arrival, and of course he was behind the threatening note. (The mysterious music isn’t ever explained, though. Like, was Gombet just practicing his acoustic cover of “Loose Ankles” or some shit?)
Nancy finds the stolen goods still safely stored in Gombet’s room so the Turnbulls get everything back; Gombet and the servant (the book takes to repeatedly calling her “the negress”, which…yeah) are arrested; and the Turnbulls host Nancy and Carson at their house for a few days while Carson recovers. Nancy’s heroism is all over the local papers, as the inhabitants of River Heights begin to learn what all of us in the future already know, which is that Nancy Drew is better than you.
Carson is finally well enough to leave, and as they go, the Turnbulls insist that Nancy take their silver urn, which Nancy says she’ll keep as a souvenir alongside Josiah Crowley’s clock. Am I misunderstanding what an urn is? Because I would not want some random family’s ashes in my house, but whatever. Also, I can only assume at some point they stop this whole thing with Nancy collecting a memento from each of her cases, because she is going to run out of space real fast.
As they drive off, Carson tells Nancy that she’s officially a better detective than him (like that’s hard?) and he can tell that she’s a “true daughter” of his because she’s already jonesing for another case. And she’ll have one in short order, the book assures us — although while this mystery was described as being “far more baffling” than Secret of the Old Clock, our next book will apparently only be “just as baffling” as this one. Man, we’re setting the baffle-meter so low already? Disappointing.
THE END.
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