Man. This one was kind of a slog! Despite being (slightly) shorter than its original, it took me approximately 85 years to read it because it was just not entertaining at all. The original book was actually pretty spooky — in a kids’ book kind of way — and felt like it moved more quickly despite being longer; I think it has fewer cuts between the action and is easier to follow, whereas the revision bounces frequently between short, repetitive scenes of Nancy finding a clue, Nancy running to the police, Nancy looking for a passage and not finding it, etc. without much progress actually being made until the very end.
So we’re here in the year 1959, and our mystery is set up straightaway: Nancy is on the phone with Helen Corning, who’s enjoying her time in the sun before she gets replaced by Bess and George in three books. As she tells Nancy, a mystery is afoot! Her aunt (“Rosemary”) and her aunt’s mother (is that…not her grandmother?) live out at a mansion called Twin Elms, and recently, strange things have been happening around the house. They think it might be a ghost! Nancy agrees to help and Helen says she’ll come over to tell Nancy more about it.
While Nancy waits for Helen, some dude named Nathan Gomber comes by. His last name was “Gombet” in the original book and I’m not sure what the purpose of changing a single letter in his last name is. Is R a more villainous letter than T? Anyway, this bit is toned down from the original book; Hannah Gruen is at home with Nancy rather than Nancy being alone, and Gomber is far less creepy and threatening. He tells Nancy and Hannah that he’s acting as an agent for several people who recently sold their properties to a rail company, who are building a bridge through town. (As railroad companies did, I guess? Look, much like Zenon, I am a girl of the 21st century, I don’t understand railroads and telegrams and shit.) They feel they were “gypped” (it sure is 1959) by the sale; Carson did some lawyer stuff on behalf of the rail company and Gomber’s here to tell Nancy — in a friendly, non-threatening way, of course — that the signature of one guy, Willie Wharton, might’ve been forged and he never sold his property at all. Nancy clutches her pearls and is like, “But why won’t Willie Wharton just swear in front of a notary that he signed the contract?” and Gomber’s like, “Because we’re extorting the rail company for more money, keep up.” Why does any of this need to involve Carson? I don’t know. Maybe Willie Wharton just wants to break his kneecaps because he’s annoying. I can understand that.
Nancy and Hannah kick Gomber out, and he huffs that they’re not even grateful that he came by to warn them. Nancy immediately wants to drop Helen’s case to help her father, and Hannah’s like, “I mean, she’s already driving over here, at least hear her out before you tell her to fuck off.” Heh. Maybe Helen drops out of the series because she realizes Nancy’s kind of a bad friend.
Helen shows up with her aunt Rosemary, and explains that the other woman who lives at Twin Elms isn’t Helen’s grandmother; Rosemary is actually Helen’s great-aunt and “Miss Flora” is Helen’s great-grandmother; Helen calls Rosemary her aunt but doesn’t call Miss Flora her grandma or nana or whatever for…reasons. I’m glad we’re cutting down on the page count by rambling on about all this instead of just giving them a less convoluted relationship. (Also, Miss Flora’s surname is Turnbull but Rosemary is married and has a different name in this version, but I’m going to keep calling them the Turnbulls for the sake of simplicity.)
The Turnbulls had been hearing weird noises and seeing shadows around their house, and recently it’s escalated to burglary. They went to the police, who were just like, “Maybe you’re haunted by the ghost of kleptomaniac, IDK”, so now they have nowhere to turn but Nancy Drew. Nancy tells them she has to think it over, since Carson is in danger, and everyone clutches their pearls at the thought. “Somebody could come up and hit him on the head,” Hannah frets. Heh. Is that such a big deal, Hannah? It happens to Nancy all the time.
When Carson gets home, Nancy tells him that she’s canceled her plans for tonight, to which he replies, “Isn’t Dirk going to stay on your list?” Excuse me? Who the hell is Dirk? Did Nancy steal Frances Humber’s man? Was she swept away by his ghost horse and his love of Cappy’s Crackers? Well, whatever; Nancy says Dirk can get fucked because there’s mysteries to solve. Ah, a sensation Ned will become familiar with over the next eighty years.
Carson’s already somewhat aware of the Willie Wharton situation; he tells Nancy that the lawyer who got Wharton’s signature was, like, basically on his deathbed and was too worried about his collapsing immune system to get the signature witnessed and notarized properly. In fact, he died like five minutes after leaving Wharton’s house! I feel like this guy should’ve went on leave instead of getting involved with a highly contentious legal case, but whatever. Anyway, Carson’s pretty sure Wharton will cave and admit to signing the papers once someone finds him; in the meantime, he’s not super bothered. “My daughter is the one who always gets hit on the head and kidnapped, not me,” he doesn’t say. “Good point,” Nancy also doesn’t say, and she decides to take on Helen’s case since surely nothing bad could happen to Carson Drew.
Figuring Carson’s not going to get set up with a pair of cement boots after all, Nancy goes on her date with one “Dirk Jackson.” He’s a “red-haired high school tennis champion” and he and Nancy have a G-rated evening out at the local theater. “Golly, I’m so lucky to have Dirk as a date,” Nancy thinks to herself. And then he drops out of this book and we don’t see him again. Rough life, Dirk.
The next day, Carson and Nancy attend church together, which intrigues me because while Nancy is, like, obviously 99% likely to be a Christian by virtue of being a normie white girl in the 1960s Midwest, I don’t think I’ve ever come across any explicit mention of her religion in the books before (although I’m sure it’s come up in other books). Anyway, on the way back, they scope out the new bridge and marvel at the technology of hydraulic shovels or whatever. Then a truck careens out of nowhere, driverless, and tries to whack Carson, so he and Nancy have to jump into the river. As you do. Carson’s like, “I can’t believe someone would just accidentally leave their truck on a steep incline without setting the parking brake!” and Nancy’s like, “Yeah, I’m not sure I believe it either.” She pokes around the construction site and finds some footprints that don’t seem to belong to any of the workers, and she and Carson gasp some more that someone might really want to kill him.
Nevertheless! Let’s not let that stop us from enjoying a “delicious dinner of spring lamb, rice and mushrooms, fresh peas and chocolate angel cake with vanilla ice cream”, courtesy of Hannah. Theory: Bess was actually introduced into the books so the writers had an excuse to wax on with a bunch of unnecessary food descriptions. Over dinner, Nancy tells Carson to be careful on his visit to the hotbed of sin and vice that is 20th-century Chicago, and Carson tells her “I can be pretty tough when the need arises”, while pounding his chest. I didn’t need that mental image in my head, book.
The next day, Carson goes to the airport — not the train station as he did in the original, RIP to the Pullman cars — promising to return Wednesday and stop by Twin Elms to see Nancy. Nancy then sets off to Twin Elms, picking up Helen on the way.
Helen greets Nancy by announcing she’s engaged, to one Jim Archer, who’s “simply out of this world.” Is that code for “about to lose everything in the Great Depression and cry all over Nancy Drew about it“? Apparently, ol’ Jim has just been invented for this book works for some oil company and has been overseas for the past few years, but he and Helen have been writing to each other, and they’re going to be married as soon as he comes back to the US permanently. Does that mean Helen’s the wife whose dress sewing took ten years off my life in 2014?
They arrive at Twin Elms, which is very grand and stately blah blah blah. Rosemary and Miss Flora tell Nancy that now Miss Flora’s pearl necklace has gone missing, and they’re certain it was the work of their mysterious ghost. Nancy decides to search the house, so she spends about a page looking through all the wardrobes and under all the beds in the house. Then she spends another page looking in all the rooms. Then she spends another page looking for footprints in the front of the house. Then she spends another page looking for footprints under the windows. Could we not have condensed this a little bit?
Helen tells Nancy that there’s another property a little ways away called “Riverview Manor”, which is an identical mansion that was home to the brother of the dude who built Twin Elms. Their kids eventually had a falling out and the second mansion has been empty for years. OR HAS IT?
They all hear music coming from the second floor and dash upstairs, but the culprit has already disappeared, after doing the dastardly deed of turning the radio on. Nancy says they should check the cellar and attic; Helen also suggests checking the chimney. She gets soot dumped all over her, and instead of checking the cellar and attic, Nancy spends two paragraphs helping Helen wash up and change her clothes. Guys. Can we prioritize? (I’m starting to see why Nancy ditches Helen for Bess and George, tbh. I mean, Bess would’ve still complained about getting soot dumped all over her, but George would’ve just called her shallow and/or fat and we could’ve kept moving here.)
Anyway, having given the thief a solid twenty minutes to escape, Nancy and Helen finally check the cellar and attic, but of course there’s no one there.
The doorbell rings, and Rosemary and Miss Flora tell Nancy that it’s probably this random guy who’s been pestering them about selling the house. Random Guy, I’m sure you’ll be shocked to find out, is Nathan Gomber. “Howdy, everybody!” he chirps. Hee.
Nancy is immediately suspicious that the guy who’s been creeping around and threatening Carson might also be creeping around and threatening the Turnbulls. Gomber wibbles that he’s just a simple Pole or Italian or whatever and oh, all his poor swarthy Catholic heart wants is to own a colonial house like Twin Elms and cosplay as Thomas Jefferson like real WASPs do. Miss Flora is moved by this because I guess that would work on someone born in the 1890s. Rosemary has to snap her out of it and point out that no, he doesn’t have to have their house just to feel American. Gomber can prove his patriotism in other ways, like enlisting in ‘Nam or reporting people to the Un-American Activities Committee!
Nancy suggests that Gomber could buy Riverview Manor, since it’s identical to Twin Elms except for the part where people are living in it. Gomber gets all huffy that Twin Elms is already nice and furnished; fixing up and decorating the other house would take effort. Well, that’s not very American of him. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, my man!
Gomber leaves, and Nancy notes that he’s on foot, despite the house not being in walking distance of much of anything. Then the chandelier above them starts creaking, like someone is jumping on the floor upstairs, but of course no one is there when they look. Then like two seconds later, Helen sees “the most horrible face I ever saw” at the window downstairs. “It looked just like a gorilla!” she wails. Really, Helen? Gorillas are cute! Between this and marrying Jim Archer, I am losing respect for her fast.
The Clue Crew notes that no one could’ve been jumping around upstairs and creeping around downstairs at the same time — could there be two culprits? I originally wrote “How exciting!” in my notes, but guess what, it’s not exciting at all. Anyway, Nancy suspects a secret passage, but they aren’t able to find one before Miss Flora’s seventy-year-old legs start giving out and they have to stop for the day. I feel like they don’t need to drag this elderly lady all around the house while they’re trying to bust crime. Anyway, again, they have dinner: “[S]teak and French fried potatoes, fresh peas, and yummy floating island for dessert,” said Helen. I had no idea what a floating island was until I read this paragraph. The more you know.
Miss Flora tells the girls an anecdote about her husband living in the house as a kid and how he had nursemaid who lived here, too, in a way that seems like it’s important but it’s not. Then they hear more eerie music and Nancy gets freaked out enough to suggest calling the police to watch the house at night. Rosemary and Miss Flora fret that the police didn’t believe them before — but naturally, now that Nancy Drew says there’s trouble, the police totally believe something’s going on and send someone out to watch the house. Does that stop our culprit from sneaking in and letting owl (…sure?) into the house? Of course not. The River Heights Cliffwood police are useless. Speaking of, Nancy goes out to see what the police guard was up to while the culprit was breaking in, and she finds out his name is Tom Patrick and they have a hearty chuckle that they sure are glad the other isn’t a ghost and Tom Patrick didn’t see shit but he’ll wake Nancy up if he does and really, is this scene necessary?
The next day, Nancy and Helen poke around the other buildings on the property, like the icehouse and the smokehouse and the carriage house and other things that make you grateful for the advent of electricity. Nancy is particularly suspicious of the carriage house, but they don’t find anything except a random hole that Helen falls through. (Nancy tells Helen to watch her step, and Helen says, “You’re so right.” Heh. Nancy hears that a lot, I’m sure.)
Nancy plans to meet her father at the train station tomorrow — which I guess makes this Tuesday — but then she gets a call from Hannah, who says she got a telegram saying Carson was “unavoidably detained”. Hannah also reports that Willie Wharton has been seen in River Heights, not Chicago. Nancy muses that it’s odd that Carson telegraphed, because it’s 1959 and he could just make a phone call. Not in so many words. She wonders if perhaps something bad might have happened to him.
Helen decides to distract Nancy by having a 1700s costume party, using old clothes they find in the attic, and they spend the evening dancing around in stockings and powdered wigs. I mean, Felicity is my second-favorite American girl (first is Edwardian queen Samantha obvs) so I can’t judge, but like…guys. Anyway, then they’re called outside by Tom Patrick, who thinks he caught the ghost, but it turns out to be some rando guy who was just cutting across the property. He insists he’s not the villain because he’s a notary public: “They don’t give a notary’s license to dishonest folks!” Indeed. Everyone has a hearty chuckle over Nancy and Helen’s panniers or whatever and then Miss Flora confirms she indeed knows Rando Guy and then they call his wife to pick him up and guys, I’m not sure any of this needed to be a chapter. Finally, as she falls asleep, Nancy has the brainwave that one of the walls in the attic looked like it might lead to the secret passageway.
The next day, Nancy and Helen go up to the attic, and decide they want to be stealth about it and avoid any creaky stairs: First step, put your foot to the left near the wall. Second step, right center. Third step, against the right wall…On the fourth and fifth it’s all right to step in the center, but on the sixth you hug the left wall, on the seventh, the right wall. Wow, this would’ve made a really good puzzle in a point-and-click game. Anyway, then they investigate the attic and don’t find a secret passage.
The next day, Hannah calls and asks Nancy if Carson is there, and Nancy’s like, “No, remember he sent that weird telegram saying he wasn’t coming, remember?” and Hannah’s like, “But then he called and said he was coming!” and Nancy’s like, “Did you ask him why he said that when he sent a telegram saying the opposite like two hours ago?” and Hannah’s like, “No, why would I do that?” I swear. Nancy wails that the telegram must have been a hoax and Carson has fallen into the villains’ hands. She dashes off to the train station, where all the cabbies claim not to have seen her father, but wait, some random nurse is also there and tells Nancy one of the cabbies is lying, so they find him and he is indeed lying because his family is being threatened, but of course being judged by Nancy Drew is worse than getting set up with a pair of cement boots, so he tells all: he was driving a man of Carson Drew’s description, when two other rando guys got into his cab and asked to carpool. Then Carson passed out and the guys said they were taking them to the hospital — the cabbie offered to take Carson there himself, but the guys then revealed themselves to be dastardly villains and threatened vague and terrible consequences should the cabbie tell anyone what happened. Nancy frets that her father has been “kidnaped” and that she must get busy!
The cabbie gives Nancy a description of the villains, one of whom is a dude with cauliflower ear (or “crinkly ear”, as the book keeps calling it). Nancy passes this along to the police and they all fall over themselves to assure her they’ll find the guy. There’s such an interesting contrast with how lazy and incompetent the police were in the original book versus how eagerly they jump to believe and help Nancy here. Anyway, Nancy then frets over what to do, and decides she needs to call Hannah for a hint. Hannah tells her to call the railroad company to update them, but they’re all out to lunch. Nancy kills time before calling back by getting lunch at the train station and the guy at the counter regales her with tales about how the pie is just like his mother used to make. I’m glad we’re spending time on this.
Eventually, lunch ends, Nancy calls the lawyers, then drives back to Twin Elms. She comes across a cave on the property that has a newspaper from River Heights lying inside; the paper has a classified ad cut out of it, which Nancy thinks must be a clue. Upon leaving the cave, she sees Mr. Crinkly Ear checking out her car. He runs off and Nancy chases him — on foot — until they get to Riverview Manor, at which point he gets into a car and drives off. Nancy reports him to the police who fall all over themselves again, some more, to help her.
Nancy gets back to Twin Elms and part of the ceiling immediately collapses on her. It knocks her out for a moment, but she gets up again (nothing’s ever gonna keep her down!) and chirps that she feels perfectly fine. Of course she does. She promptly calls Hannah and asks her to find the classified ad that had been cut out of the paper; Hannah tells her it was an ad for a used car dealership.
Nancy reports the dealership to the police, who go and investigate (having the police do it instead of Nancy herself definitely feels like one of the choices the rewrites made to make Nancy less forward). The come back raving about how smart Nancy is to have found a clue, because Nancy Drew is better than you. They figured out who Mr. Crinkly Ear is (one “Samuel Greenman”) and tracked him to his address, but apparently he left town a while ago. The police are like, “Do you think he could be one of our suspects?” and I’m like…yes? Did we not already establish this?
Back at Twin Elms, Miss Flora has a heart attack, brought on by seeing a man in the parlor. She gasps that she was especially shocked by how ugly he was, because I guess she wouldn’t have had a heart attack if she’d seen a hot burglar. Nancy hurries off to investigate the parlor, and she and Helen finally find a secret passageway in the wall. Jesus, we’re like 70% of the way through the book. I am so tired.
In the passageway, Nancy finds a note from the 1770s, as one does. The notewriter mentions that there are British spies among them, which he knows because there are several passageways around the house where one can eavesdrop on the nearby rooms. The Clue Crew deduces that the culprit must be lurking around these passageways and can overhear everything, hence why they’ve been able to evade Nancy so far.
Helen calls again with bad news: the railroad company can’t delay much longer; if Carson doesn’t show up with Willie Wharton by Monday, they’ll have to give in to Nathan Gomber. Nancy frets once again about what she’ll do, and decides to “commune with Nature” to help her think, a technique long used by Carson Drew, apparently. I mean, if “communing with Nature” is code for “golfing and ignoring his daughter,” sure, I guess.
Nancy wanders around and inhales some wisteria and listens to the lark of the birds and am I suddenly in an L.M. Montgomery book? Then she has the brainwave that perhaps Nathan Gomber is involved with all this. Thanks for getting there, Nancy. She runs off to tell Helen this; Helen gasps that she can’t believe Gomber might be the culprit: he was acting so concerned about Carson’s well-being! Heh. Helen would be so hard to blackmail. You’d tell her it sure would be a shame if someone set her dad up with a cement overcoat and she’d be like, “Golly, thanks for caring!”
(Sidebar: I’m think I’m starting to see why they changed Helen out for Bess and George; I spent half this paragraph thinking Nancy was still talking to Hannah before I realized it was a different H name.)
At the police station, the cops promptly agree to shadow Gomber for Nancy. Then the girls go grocery shopping and Nancy morosely reflects that everything in the store reminds her of the case: “Dad loved thick, juicy steaks,” she wibbles at the meat counter. That sounds sexual but I’m too worn down by this book to think of anything funny to say about it. Insert your own joke about Carson being some kind of meat pervert here.
When they get back to Twin Elms, they see Gomber driving away with a smirk on his face. Nancy gasps he could only be smirking because some untold evil has happened; they follow him but he gets away. They go back to the police station again, some more, and the cops agree to put out an alert. Weren’t the cops already shadowing Gomber? Is this necessary? Whatever, I don’t care that much.
Back at Twin Elms, Nancy and Helen discover that Gomber was smirking because he got Miss Flora to sell Twin Elms to him. Apparently, he just barged into the house while she was bedridden and started threatening her. Nancy tells everyone not to give up since it sounds like Miss Flora signed under duress, which is definitely illegal, but Miss Flora just wails that nothing can be done and she wants to enjoy her last days in her home before Gomber kicks her out. Not to be mean to an eighty-year-old, but come on, man, let’s not roll over so fast.
Nancy hears something in the attic, so she and Helen go to investigate, but they don’t find anything there. Guys. We are 85% of the way through the book. I see that percentage every time I open it to work on this post and it makes me despair. Nancy goes on the roof and sees something moving in Riverview Manor across the way; she decides to go investigate. Of course, she goes about this the right and proper way, by approaching the realtor and asking for permission to look around. Heaven forbid she break in! Unfortunately for Nancy, the house has just been sold, to one Nathan Gomber. Nancy gasps that Gomber might be holding her father hostage in the house. Sure. Whatever.
The police call Nancy and tell her they’ve caught Samuel Greenman (Mr. Crinkly Ear, remember? I know, me either). The cab driver initially refuses to identify him but then Nancy gets her sanctimony on and the cabbie cracks in about two sentences. On a roll, Nancy shames Samuel Greenman into confessing all, too: he cries that he never meant to help kidnap such an upstanding citizen as Carson Drew, and in fact, he was barely even involved, it was some other guy that drugged Carson! Greenman just happened to be in the car! And he’ll do whatever he can to help Nancy because he sorely regrets ever getting mixed up in a life of crime! Man, we’re laying it on a bit thick, aren’t we?
Greenman gives her a description of one of the criminals — not Gomber, some other guy who’s working with them. Did there need to be this many villains in the book? Anyway, Nancy figures that Gomber, Some Other Guy, and/or Willie Wharton are all in cahoots; one of them wants Twin Elms for…reasons, and having learned Nancy was coming here, Gomber kidnapped Carson to keep Nancy distracted. Well…I guess it makes slightly more sense than the original book, which never explains at all why Gombet/Gomber was burglarizing Twin Elms, but only barely.
Nancy calls the railroad company and asks one of their lawyers to come by tomorrow. Then she and Helen despair some more that they can’t poke around Riverview Manor, but then the realtor comes by and says he’s changed his mind and Nancy can have the key to the house. I mean. Sure. I guess.
Helen and Nancy poke around Riverview Manor a bit and fall into a secret passage, quite literally. They’re happened upon by Willie Wharton, who matches the description of one of the guys who kidnapped Carson. Naturally, Willie Wharton isn’t a real criminal, either — he just thought Gomber would get him more money for his property, but then Gomber started asking Willie to do some “jobs” for him, which involved sneaking around Twin Elms and scaring everyone. But he never stole anything, and he sure is sorry for helping kidnap Carson Drew, and he’ll go report everything to the police and lawyers now! Man, the criminals in this book are so helpful.
Nancy sends Willie off to go swear to the lawyer that he signed the contract, while she and Helen look for Carson. They take the police with them, of course; God forbid a girl goes into a secret passageway by herself. Nancy tells the police that she “has a hunch from reading books about old passageways” (as one does?) that there are several rooms branching off from the tunnels, and sure enough, they find a room with Carson inside. He’s all out of it from being drugged, but they have him sniff a “restorative” and he immediately feels better because Carson Drew is better than you.
Not that he and Nancy actually have to do anything, because just then, the police waltz back in and announce that Gomber and some other random dude (does there have to be another random dude?) he was working with have been arrested. Gomber’s confessed everything — on top of all the bridge stuff, he was trying to care the Turnbulls away from Twin Elms so that he could develop the land for himself. What was he trying to develop the land into? Why did he need both Twin Elms and Riverview? Let’s not bother asking too many questions.
Anyway, everyone’s happy, and Helen says they’ll plan a “super-duper” lunch to celebrate Nancy solving the case, but Nancy huffs that she’d rather be solving another mystery – which she will soon, because The Bungalow Mystery will be upon her! I can only hope it’s less boring than this one.
Hey, remember how in the original book, it was suggested that Gombet hated the bridge so much that he was going to blow it up? Both of these books would’ve been way better with some explosions, I’m just saying.
THE END.
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