Nancy Drew Mystery Stories #18 - The Mystery at the Moss-Covered Mansion

Wow - 700 blog posts since I started this blog back in 2015!  Honestly, I didn't think this blog would still be going eight years later, and I certainly never thought I'd be hitting my 700th blog post!  Yet, here we are.  It has been quite an adventure, and as anyone who has been following along can attest, the variety of things I've read has certainly been quite ... eclectic.  From adult mysteries to children's mysteries ... from super heroes to horror stories ... from comic books to literary works ... from short stories to full length novels ... from female detectives to male newspaper reporters.  And, for the most part, I have enjoyed nearly all of the books, comics, and short stories that I've read to date.  So, as we head into the next eight years and the next 700 blog posts, I can't wait to see what adventures lie ahead...

 

For now, though, the adventures through the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories continue, as we reach book 18 of the original series.  Published in 1941, the outline for this book was written by Edna Stratemeyer Squier and the actual writing of the book was by Mildred Wirt (Benson), who, with the exception of books 8, 9, and 10, had been writing all of the books in this series from the beginning based on outlines provided by the Stratemeyer Syndicate.  It has been so long since I originally read the original text version of this story, that I was not really sure what to expect.  But I can tell you without hesitation that the story I read was far from anything I could have possibly expected!

The Mystery at the Moss-Covered Mansion (and note - the title is very important, as the title provides a clear delineation between the original text version and the revised text version, which was published in 1971) is ... well, it is probably wilder than Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disney!  Now, before I begin, I should probably note that the book was published in 1941, meaning it was likely written in 1940 or early 1941.  At this time, Wirt was dealing with a quite a bit at home - her husband at the time, Asa Wirt, had suffered a stroke and her daughter, Peggy, was only four years old at the time.  Add to this the stress of writing the number of books Wirt was writing, and one can imagine that her work may not be exactly up to par.  On top of this, the outlines that Edward Stratemeyer's daughters were providing Wirt were becoming more and more detailed, to the point where Wirt could barely find ways to include everything that was being given to her to put into the stories!  And last, but not least, the outline for this book was written by Edna Stratemeyer Squier, and ... well, let's just say, the books based on her outlines were usually a bit "different" from those of her late father or sister.

That being said, let's talk about that story.  Nancy, Bess and George are off to a city named Ashley to meet up with Nancy's father.  As usual, there's no detail as to where "Ashley" is located, but a look at the map reveals there is an Ashley in Indiana, located on the Northeastern side of the state.  There are also cities named Ashley in 14 other states as well!  However, page 2 of the book reveals that the girls pass pine and moss-draped oak trees - and there are red pines that grow in Central and Northern Indiana, and a number of different oak trees grow in Indiana as well.  The book reveals that the day the girls arrive in Ashley also happens to be Carson Drew's birthday (p. 16)!  Unfortunately, we aren't told what day, or even month, it is, nor are we given his age.  But we do find out that Nancy has a very special present for her father - a 20" x 15" oil painting of herself by the famed artist Jules Raynard (p. 16).  And, coincidentally enough (and let's face it, it wouldn't be a Nancy Drew book without those coincidences!), the woman Nancy and her friends are staying with in Ashley happens to also be a painter, having been trained by another artist named Karl Karter (p. 22).

Anyway, the mystery begins when the girls happen upon a "moss-covered mansion" (p. 6) on their way to Ashley, and Nancy becomes intrigued by the mysterious nature of the place, as well as the shot they hear fired somewhere within the mansion.  And just in case you don't remember the name of the book, don't worry - every time any character talks about the mansion, it is ALWAYS referred to as "the moss-covered mansion."  After the girls leave, George realizes she lost her watch somewhere in those woods near the moss-covered mansion - thus, giving the girls reason to go back to look for the watch (and for Nancy to investigate what is going on in that mansion).  This mystery actually becomes more dangerous than previous ones when they learn someone is found shot near the moss-covered mansion and dies from the shot (p. 43).  Later, a man named Ramo shows up at the boarding house where the girls are staying, demanding to know what she knows about his brother being shot (p. 49).  Of course, she knows nothing, as she never saw he man, nor was anywhere near the mansion when the man was shot.  

Now (and I hope you're writing all of this down, otherwise you'll never keep track of it), we learn that Carson is in Ashley looking for June Campbell, who is to inherit her recently dead mother's fortune - the only problem is, June cannot be found.  It so happens that a Mrs. Labelle may know something about the Campbells, so Nancy decides to interview the woman for her father (since Carson knows she can interview the woman more skillfully than he could - he says so on page 51!).  But, while at the woman's house, the plaster ceiling collapses right on top of Nancy (p. 54)!   Mrs. Labelle informs the girls that June Campell had a friend in Ashley named Penelope Parson (hmmmm, sound familiar?  Penny Parker, maybe?).  It turns out that Penelope lives in a nearby city of Wayside on the Bonny View Trailer Camp (which is funny, since Wirt had published four "Trailer Stories" just a few year prior to the publication of this book). 

Something interesting to note is that the point of view shifts here, and readers are treated to a scene where Penelope visits Mrs. Labelle, and the two discuss June Campbell, which conversation Ramo happens to overhear.  I don't know that I can recall any scenes in a Nancy Drew book that was told from a third-party point of view where Nancy was not even in the room!  Nevertheless, Nancy and her friends pop back in, because Carson has received notification that June has appeared and he wants Mrs. Labelle to go with him to identify her.  Nancy asks the woman to give her the key to her house and she will care for the house while Mrs. Labelle is away - and she agrees (p. 68).  Now, I realize that the 1940s were a different time, but I have a hard time imagining someone turning over the keys to their house to a complete stranger like that.

Eventually the mystery starts to build, and I'm sure you can figure out by now that the disappearance of June Campbell is related to the moss-covered mansion, and with all the talk about art, that also plays a part of that pesky mansion - but the manner in which this story goes about getting there is so convoluted, with so many characters and situations, that it's hard to follow along sometimes as it jumps from scene to scene without any real reason or connection.  I mean, at one point, we have a monkey that escapes from a circus, we have a dead horse being delivered to the moss-covered mansion, we have Nancy nearly stepping on a copperhead snake, we discover that Ramo is in cahoots with a gypsy psychic reader (and what is it with Wirt's fascination with psychics?  Tapping Heels featured one, as did Penny Parker's Witch Doll and Silken Ladder, and now this one?), Mrs. Labelle suffers a heart attack, Nancy uses a magazine to fan air into Mrs. Labelle's mouth (really????), Carson charters a private plane to take Nancy and him to Liberty Corners, the plane crashes, Nancy gets knocked out by a heavy branch falling on her head, and that's not even the half of it all!  There is one pretty good scene, though, where Nancy runs Ramo off the road (p. 188) - I thought that was a nice touch, since it seems the crooks are always running Nancy off the road, it was nice to see her turn the tables on them!

Another scene I thought was very appropriate is when Nancy goes to see an attorney to discover what information he might have about the moss-covered mansion.  It seems he handled the legal affairs for the people who owned the house before, so Nancy thinks he could provide her a clue - but the attorney is away, and his secretary refuses to give Nancy any information, saying she cannot disclose his business affairs (p. 78).  While this frustrates Nancy to no end, she, being the daughter of an attorney, should know a thing or to about attorney/client privilege!

Oh, and speaking of those owners - Nancy learns pretty early on that the moss-covered mansion was owned by the Hurd family, but that they all died from a mysterious illness while they were living in the mansion (p. 33), and that ever since, no one goes near the place.  There are a couple of mentions about the weird death of the Hurd family in the story, but what's truly odd is that the mystery surrounding this is never resolved.  Nancy never really questions or digs into what could have caused an entire family to die like that in the house.  I guess with all of the other strange things going on in this book, that sort of got forgotten.

Something else I found to be very odd is that when Nancy finally finds her father in the hospital following the plane crash (yeah, don't ask - that whole part of the book is crazy enough!), she runs to his bedside where "she kissed him tenderly.  Then suddenly she felt a wave of dizziness coming over her.  She must not let her father see this!  Pulling herself together, she lay down on the bed for a few minutes, then stood up" (p. 164).  I don't know about you, but who lays down in a hospital bed beside a patient just because they are feeling dizzy?  Wouldn't they sit down in a chair next to the bed, or perhaps lie down in another bed?  And the fact that no one in the story thought this was weird or asked Nancy why she climbed into bed with her father, only to get right back up ... well, it's a VERY odd scene.

Of course, that's no more odd than Bess asking the doctor to give Nancy a stimulant on that same page, and the doctor providing one with no questions asked!  Dare we even wonder what that stimulant might be?  Yes, there is no doubt about it, this book would make the PERFECT fodder for Michael Cornelius' "Crazy Eights" column (and if you don't know what that is, go back and re-read some issues of The Sleuth, and you'll know exactly what I mean!).  

There is SO much more I could talk about with regard to this story (and I won't even go into that horrid re-write, in which we have exploding oranges!), but the last thing I'll mention is the title.  When the book was first published, the title was The Mystery at the Moss-Covered Mansion, likely because the mystery involved what was actually going on inside of the mansion and the people there; but when the book was revised in 1971, the word "The" at the beginning of the title was dropped, and the word "at" suddenly became "of," so that the title of the revised book was simply Mystery of the Moss-Covered Mansion.  Not sure exactly why the change in title, unless it is because the stories are so distinctly different, the Syndicate wanted to make sure readers realized it was a different book.

Oh, and yes, there is one more thing - in the first few printings of this book, the next book is listed as "The Quest of the Telltale Map" (p. 215), but it was later changed to "The Quest of the Missing Map," which is what the title of the eventually published book was.  Just a little tidbit of trivia I'd throw in there.

RATING:  5 dust-covered cars out of 10 for cramming more crazy things into a mystery than this reader ever thought could possibly fit into just one story!