Missing at (the) Marshlands - the Third Arden Blake Mystery

Normally, I would not read a series book until either (a) I have the entire series, or (b) at least until I have the first books leading up the current one, so that I am reading them in order.  Rarely, if ever, do I read a series book out of order.  It's just not in me to do that.  But, with this book, I had to make an exception.  I've had this book for a long time, and it has sat on my shelf waiting for me to find books one and two, so I could have the complete three-book set.  But the Arden Blake series by Cleo F. Garis is not an easy series of books to find at reasonable prices.  Even without a dust jacket, then can command pretty high prices.  But, as seen with my last post, I recently read The Clue in the Jewel Box from the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, and it was brought to my attention during our discussion of that book that this particular volume of the Arden Blake series has some similar story elements to Jewel Box.  Well, my curiosity got the better of me, so I picked it up and read it.

Missing at (the) Marshlands is the third and final book of the Arden Blake series written by Cleo F. Garis, who is the daughter of authors Howard Garis and Lillian Garis.  It seems this series is identified as the "Arden Blake" mysteries, but Arden's two best friends, Sim Westover and Terry Landry, are featured equally, if not more than Arden herself.  Unlike Nancy Drew, with her friends Bess and George, Arden does not take the limelight.  Sim and Terry are both more gung-ho and adventurous than Arden, and they are more ready to take on the adventure of a good mystery.  In this story, Arden and Sim are joining Terry for the first couple of months of their summer vacation (after finishing their freshman year of college) at Oceanedge, where Terry's mother owns a cottage on the bay.  After solving two mysteries during the course of that first year of college, the three girls are ready for some downtime and summer fun.  But, of course, fate has other plans...

Before they even reach the cottage, they stumble across an abandoned car on the side of the road.  There is a Russian wolfhound left in the car, and the dog is none too friendly to strangers.  They find they owner somewhat further down the road, a very handsome stranger with a slight foreign accent.  They offer him a ride to the only garage in Oceanedge (which is owned and run by the town's Sheriff!) and learn that he is an artist who has rented the houseboat located not far from the cottage where the girls will be staying. After dropping him off, they head on to the cottage, and just in time, for a strong storm hits, with rain and wind lashing against the small home.  It is then when the mystery begins - a young girl is seen peering in one of the windows, but she takes off running when the girls try to talk to her.  Then, the stranger with the Russian wolfhound shows up in the middle of the storm, looking for matches.  He reveals his name is Dimitri Uzlov and his dog is Tania.  The girls are intrigued by this stranger to Oceanedge and are determined to learn more about him - and as the summer progresses, they do learn a lot more!

Uzlov ultimately becomes the center of the story, as he is the one "missing" at Marshlands (which is the name the natives of the area call Oceanedge).  Tania shows up at the girls' cottage, leading them back to the houseboat where they discover Uzlov is gone!  They know he would never abandon his dog, and they realize something is wrong when they go inside and find things out of place and one of the cabinet doors wrenched open - the very cabinet where Uzlov kept a precious gold snuff box he had shown the girls during a previous visit.  Now, this snuff box is important, as when Uzlov showed it to the girls, he shared with them a secret - when he pushed a secret spring, a bird comes out, spreads its wings, nods it head, and sings (pp. 85-86)!  Uzlov reveals it once belonged to a Russian Czar and is of great value (p. 85).  This description seems to be taken from the Faberge egg known as the Bay Tree (also called the Orange Tree egg), crafted in 1911 for Nicholas II to present to his mother, Empress Maria Feodorovna (Faberge - Bay Tree Egg), in that both have a secret spring that reveals a feathered songbird that rises, flaps its wings, turns it head, and sings!  So, back to the story, it seems both the Russian artist and his valuable snuff box are missing!

The girls are left at a loss to explain what happened to the man.  During the course of the mystery, they meet young Melissa, the girl who peered in the window their first night in town, whose father is overly protective of her and, to the girls' way of thinking, somewhat abusive.  They also meet a woman named Olga, who comes to visit Uzlov and who seems to make instant friends with Melissa.  There is also the strange man who shows up unexpectedly to visit Uzlov, and who appears to have been the last person to see the Russian artist before he disappeared!  The only problem is, the girls have no knowledge of the man's name or how to find him.  They also meet a female investigator who comes to Oceanedge to learn more about young Melissa, who apparently has an elderly aunt that wants to provide for the girl, but has been inhibited by the girl's father.  This story thread seems to have nothing whatsoever to do with the main plot, but as with all children's mysteries, they seemingly disconnected mysteries eventually tie up nicely into one.

 

Their only clue to finding the missing artist seems to be a torn piece of envelope that has a partial name and address on it, and the girls must work hard to determine what the missing letters are to determine the actual address (which they ultimately do and send off a telegram in the hopes of getting a favorable response!). The town's sheriff/mechanic is not of much help in the beginning, but by the end of the story, when it comes time to confront Melissa's father about the girl's aunt providing for her, he is able to provide some much needed help.  In fact, it is the sheriff who unwittingly discovers the missing Russian in the most unlikely of places!

Now, for those astute readers out there who are fans of Nancy Drew, you may be thinking, "Boy, some of these plot elements sound awfully familiar..."  Well, that's probably because there is a lot of similarities between this story and The Clue in the Jewel Box (which I just reviewed prior to this book!).  Both books feature a Russian man who is an artist ... both books feature a dog that is extremely unfriendly towards people ... both books feature a box (snuff box here, a Faberge egg in Jewel Box) that contains a singing bird, is valuable, and is from Russian royalty; both feature an elderly woman looking for a relative to whom she will leave her fortune; both feature a clue found from a paper with a partial address that the young sleuths must use ingenuity to determine the full address; and both feature a bit of misdirection with regard to the identities of some of the characters.  This book was published in 1934, nine (9) years before the publication of Jewel Box, leaving one to wonder if perhaps Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, who wrote the outline for Jewel Box, might have lifted a few ideas from this book when plotting her own book nearly a decade later!

One interesting tidbit is the title of the book.  As noted by Jennifer White on her series books website, the cover of the book and the dust jacket list the title as Missing at the Marshlands; however, the inside title page, list of books, and the headers at the top of each page of the story show the title as simply Missing at Marshlands (dropping "the").  As Jennifer points out on her website, in the story, the natives simply refer to the area as "Marshlands," not "the Marshlands," meaning the true title of the book should probably be that displayed on the title page and interior pages of the book, Missing at Marshlands.  This is why I put "the" in parentheses in the title of this blog post, because there are two possible titles.  I have to wonder if the "the" on the cover and the dust jacket was a misprint, or if that was the originally planned title, but "the" was dropped when the book went to print (being too late at the time for the boards and dust jacket art to be changed)?  Guess at this point in time, we will never know for sure.

Another item of note is the fact that this book has a dedication page, on which the author thanks her friend, Dorothy O'Connor, "Who saw the Czar's snuffbox and told me its tragic story."  Now, this raises a very interesting question.  Did Cleo Garis' friend happen to attend "The Hammer Collection of Russian Imperial Art Treasures" at the department story, Lord & Taylor that was on display in 1933, the year prior to the publication of this book?  Thanks to my good friend, Pamela Hancock, I was able to view the program from that display, and listed as Item No. 4469 was a "Gold Snuff-Box, handsomely chased, in the period when Russia's silver and goldsmiths were at their best ... This was a coronation present to Alexander II."  Right after that is listed Item No. 4483, which was another "Gold Snuff-Box bearing the monogram and crown of Alexander II, grandfather of Nicholas II, the last Czar of Russia ... The monogram and crown are studded with diamonds."  Either one of these could have been the inspiration for the snuff-box in Marshlands.  Considering the number of items from this program that appeared in The Clue in the Jewel Box, it is evident that Harriet (or someone extremely close to her) attended the display, so perhaps Dorothy O'Connor was also there at the same time!  Definitely something to think about...

As with Jewel Box, this book by Cleo Garis offers up a fictional tale of mystery with plenty of references to the real world mixed in for good measure - although admittedly, this one does not offer anywhere near as much as Jewel Box does!).  Now I am definitely interesting in hunting down the first two books in this series, so I can read them and see if they are as enjoyable as this one.  Plus, there is a fourth book mentioned at the end of this story, called The Hermit of Pirate Light.  There is no indication that book was ever published, and what is interesting is that six years later, in 1940, Cleo's mother published the last book in her Melody Lane series, which was titled The Hermit of Proud Hill.  According to the end of this book, The Hermit of Pirate Light was to tell "what happened when the girls spent another summer together" (p. 248).  While I haven't read the last Melody Lane story yet, I did peek at the first few pages, and not surprisingly, the story takes place at the beginning of summer!  This, of course, begs the question - did Cleo have a manuscript, at the very least an outline, for her fourth Arden Blake book, and since it was never published, did her mother, Lillian Garis, simply repurpose it for her final Melody Lane book?  Inquiring minds want to know!  I have a good friend who knows members of the Garis family, and he will be checking to see if they can shed any light on this mystery, so I can't wait to find out!

RATING:  8 brilliantly painted wooden bracelets out of 10 for an interesting mystery that introduced me to some great new characters!