The Clue at Crooked Lane - a Mystery Story for Girls

Moving right along to the next "Mystery Story for Girls" written by Mildred A. Wirt.  These books have been rather enjoyable, if for nothing else but their unique mysteries.  While the stories may feature some of the standard mystery tropes (lost treasures, stolen inheritances, missing relatives, etc.), the plots are rather different than the norm.  For me, that gives them a bit of an added touch of excitement to them, as you (the reader) will not necessarily know where Wirt is going to take the story.  While Wirt's writing for the Syndicate's series was definitely above the standard for those books, I think her own personal books have a creative side to them that is missing from the Syndicate's books.  And in this book, I think Wirt took the opportunity to poke a bit of fun at the Syndicate, particularly with respect to Nancy Drew and the first few books she wrote in that series.  You'll see what I mean as we go along...

The Clue at Crooked Lane was published in 1936 and appears to be the first in her series of "Mystery Stories for Girls."  The unsuspecting sleuth in this book is Margaret (Peggy) Palmer, a high school student who lives with her widower father, Major William Palmer (retired from the army).  He is strict, but has a good relationship with his daughter.  Peggy often assists her Uncle Jack (her mother's brother) with his curio and antique shop, sometimes with the help of her best friend, Rebecca (Becky) Rogers.  Now that you know the cast of characters, you are probably wondering about the mystery.  Well, it begins when Becky convinces Peggy to join her and some other girls on a visit to a camp of gypsies who have set up in town.  Peggy is wary, but eventually gives in.  The other girls all have their fortune told, but Peggy does not believe in that nonsense - a fact the old wrinkled gypsy picks up on.  She gives Peggy a silver bracelet as a gift with a cryptic warning to see if she can hang on to it.  Peggy has only enough time to notice a strange symbol on the bracelet (three interconnected triangles) before the police show up, and Peggy is mistaken to have stolen the bracelet.  The police take her with them to the woman who owns the bracelet - one Marilyn Marlowe, a self-absorbed actress who identifies Peggy as the girl who took the bracelet from her!

And so begins the mystery, which grows only stranger when Peggy is helping her uncle unload some new items at his shop, and she accidentally uncovers a secret drawer in a desk he has just received.  In that drawer is a small onyx box, which just so happens to have that same strange symbol as the bracelet!  Peggy wonders if there is a connection, but her curiosity is not to be satisfied, for a clerk at the curio shop mistakenly sells the box before she or her uncle can discover who is the actual owner of the box - and to make matters worse, Peggy discovers it was Miss Marlowe who bought the box (even though she claims she did not).  Peggy traces the owner of the box back to an abandoned mansion called Sleepy Hollow, where she meets Linda Mason, a young girl with a sad story - she was living with her uncle, who cared for her after her parents died; but one day, her uncle left to take some of his fortune out of the bank and donate it to some local charities, when he simply disappeared.  Many people think he left with the money he took from the bank, but Linda is sure something else happened, and that quite possibly he was no longer alive.  Peggy and Becky feel for the young girl and invite her to visit them in their hometown.

Now, just when you think there are enough characters, Wirt throws in yet another one with a mystery of his own.  Uncle Bug Kelter is a miserly hermit with some very strange ways that keep many of his neighbors away from him.  He lives in a run down shack at the end of a crooked lane, which Peggy and Becky happen to travel down by pure accident.  The girls are first frightened by the man, but quickly realize he is no danger, but merely confused and old and in need of help.  Peggy, being the good-hearted girl she is, makes it her mission to help the man, who claims to be unable to remember his past before he started living in the old house.  (And if you have started to put two and two together, then, yes, it does equal four in this instance.)

Although the "mystery" is not really very mysterious, it is fun to follow Peggy along on her adventures in figuring everything out - from the clue of the triple triangle, to the mystery of the onyx box, to the identity of the old miser, to the whereabouts of that missing will (and yes, you heard that right - there is a missing will in this story) .... which I guess should go ahead and lead me to talk about how Wirt takes elements from those first few Nancy Drew books she wrote and plugs them in here.  Let's see - (1) there's a missing will that could help provide for an indigent relative who is greatly in need of the help ... (2) there's a pious, self-absorbed relative who thinks she is entitled to the estate and will do anything to keep it, even if it means destroying a later Will ... (3) the Will is hidden in an object, and it's up to Peggy to find it - there is even an old clock that Peggy has to go out and pick up for her uncle! ... (4) there is a young girl who is searching for a missing relative she believes may be dead ... (5) the girls are caught in a horrible storm, in which a large tree limb crashed down in front of them ... need I go on?  There are definitely enough similar story elements that it makes you wonder if Wirt did not intentionally throw these things into the story just to poke fun at the Syndicate.  I suppose at this point we will never know.

Something else I did notice, however, was that Wirt gave Uncle Jack a male servant who happens to be Chinese man named "Squint," which is similar the Chinese servant in the Brandon household in Through the Moon-Gate Door, a later book in this Mystery Stories for Girls series by Wirt.  In this book, Squint not only has the same dialect when speaking, but he is also an expert at cooking, as well as baking and decorating cakes, while being very slack on the actual housekeeping duties (which is a pretty much exact description of Lin, the servant from the later book by Wirt).  Were these common perceptions of Chinese men back in the early 1930s?  Or did perhaps Wirt personally know someone with a Chinese servant at the time who exhibited these traits, and so she simply integrated them into her stories?  Again, another mystery that will likely never be solved.

In any event, Wirt does provide some pretty tense moments in the story, from the danger during the storm when the tree limb falls, to Peggy facing off against a hardened criminal with a gun, and other adventures in-between, the action and suspense never falters for a moment.  I do like the character of Peggy Palmer, and while she is similar to Nancy Drew with a widower father and a mother-like housekeeper, I think Peggy's relationship with her father is a tad more interesting to read that the over-indulgent relationship Carson has with Nancy.  And speaking of "Peggy" - Wirt's own daughter, who was born November 1936, was named Peggy - and since this book was published prior to that time, it leaves one to wonder if Wirt liked that name enough to use it for her daughter (perhaps it was a name she already liked, or perhaps after using it in this story, she decided she liked it enough to christen her daughter with the name, or perhaps it was merely a coincidence).  

This was definitely one of the better Mystery Stories for Girls by Wirt ... still have several left to read, so we'll see how they hold up.

RATING:  8 loaves of stale bread out of 10 for a well-written mystery that offers suspense, likable characters, and great resolution!