This is not only one of the shortest "series" I've ever seen (only one book was published in the series), it is also one of the most unusual. The book is promoted as "The Newspaper Boys' Series" on the cover, yet on the inside book listing, it calls the series the "Renfro Horn Stories." The cover does not identify the author; rather, it indicates the publisher is "The R.H. Gore Book Co." The author is not identified until the title page, which lists him at Stephen Rudd. Now, you may ask what is so odd about any of this ... well, R.H. Gore is actually Robert Hayes Gore (1886-1972), an American newspaper publisher - he owned and published the Ft. Lauderdale Daily News, acquired the DeLand Sun and Daytona Beach Sun-Record, and later started The Pompano Beach Sun Sentinel. He was born in Knottsville, Kentucky (which is quite a coincidence, since I was born in Kentucky and now live in Florida!). "Stephen Rudd" was merely a pseudonym, and this book was the one and only book ever published in this series and by that particular publisher.
The Mystery of the Missing Eyebrows is self-proclaimed to be the first book in the Newspaper Boys' Series, featuring Renfro Horn as the main character. The book is copyrighted in 1921 by the R.H. Gore Publishing Company, which was a short-lived publishing house established by Gore in Terre Haute, Indiana shortly after he became publisher of the
Terre Haute Post in 1916. It should come as no surprise that the book should be so heavily focused on the newspaper world, since Gore himself was involved with the newspaper publishing world for many years, both in Indiana and in Florida. In fact, Gore (a/k/a Rudd) provides a one-page introduction just before the table of contents that is basically a self-serving advertisement for subscribing to your local newspaper and promoting the hard work of newspaper boys, alleging the "newspaper training is valuable, as much so as school..." He even makes reference to the "fact" that the Renfro Horn in this book is based upon a real boy by the same name who delivered newspapers in his youth. Perhaps he is referring to himself (since his first two initials are "R" and "H").
The mystery centers around the kidnapping of Helen Weir, the young daughter of a local judge who is known to be extremely stern in his sentencing. Renfro Horn, who happens to see a shadowy figure lurking around the Weir house on two different occasions, figures out a way to stay out later to keep watch on the house by getting a job as a paper boy (although he certainly does not need the job, since it made clear his family is very upper class, and even his mother looks down her nose at children who get menial jobs such as a paper boy). When he learns of the kidnapping, Renfro returns to the house to search for clues and finds on the window where he had seen the shadowy man looking into the house two eyebrows stuck to the ice on the window. He uses a knife to carefully cut off those eyebrows and decides he is going to solve the case himself by simply finding the man who is missing his eyebrows (hence, the title of the book!). His family's young "second maid," whose name is Mary, ends up lending aid to Renfro, as she had been studying detective techniques in the various stories she had been reading. In a way, she became the Watson to Renfro's own version of Sherlock.
The story is pretty much a standard children's mystery of its time. The police are inept at figuring out what has happened to Judge Weir's daughter, while Renfro stumbles cross clue after clue, through various circumstances and just plain luck, which lead him to figure out the girl's kidnapper(s) must be hiding out in the old Hall mansion, which is said to be haunted, since its owner, a man by the name of Captain Pete, has made his residence in a shack some ways away. Renfro learns that Captain Pete's brother has been released from the prison where he has served time, and he thinks that he may be involved with the kidnapping. Mysterious lights in the supposed empty mansion, the rather rotund man who Renfro sees with the Captain, and the mysterious woman wearing the same scarf he had previously seen on the man all lead Renfro, with Mary's help, to stake out the old house and find out the truth of who is staying there. In the end, Renfro himself gets kidnapped, which leads him to finding Helen and solving the mystery - making him the hero of the judge and his wife, giving the newspaper a major scoop for a huge story, and encouraging Mary to decide she wants to help Renfro solve more mysteries!
And speaking of more mysteries, the listing in the front of the book provides a list of eleven more books "to follow shortly," it proclaims. The stories alleged to be coming have some rather unique titles, such as
The Luck of a Rainy Night, The Long Low Whistle, The Growl of the Lost Dog, The Fall of the East Side Bully, and others. In the back of the book, there are short synopses given for the next four books that were to be published -
The Luck of a Rainy Night (or, Renfro Horn Wins the $10,000 Reward);
The Rise of Route 16 (or, Renfro Gets a Regular Detective Badge);
The White Bag's Secret (or, Renfro Horn Trails Down the Thieving Dog); and
The Clue of the Twisted Paper (or, The Mystery of the Lost Girl). Sadly, none of those stories ever saw print, and it is unknown (at least to me!) if any outlines or manuscripts for any of these books were ever completed. vv Broward County in Florida contains an archive for Mr. Gore in their Historical Archives, which include papers documenting his career as the Governor of Puerto Rico, newspaper publisher, real estate developer, and other activites:
The Robert H. Gore Papers. This book appears to be the one and only book Mr. Gore ever wrote, and the archive do not indicate there are any unpublished outlines or manuscripts. I enjoyed this book sufficiently, I would definitely have read more if there were any written!
There is no dust jacket with the book, and I can find no evidence that it was ever published with one. There are, however, two illustrations - one is the frontis piece, and the other is inserted between 182 and 183. As can be seen, the illustrations come with rather lengthy taglines, much longer than you might be used to seeing in a children's series book. The frontis piece depicts Renfro finding the two eyebrows stuck to the Weirs' window; the second illustration, which shows Renfro being kidnapped, is for whatever reason placed in between pages 182 and 183, but the action in the scene does not actually occur until 189; so I'm uncertain as to why the illustration was inserted pages before that, as it does rather spoil such an important scene in the story. Neither illustration is signed, that I can see, and the book does not give any credit to the identity of the artist. The title page merely indicates the book is illustrated.
I always find it amusing when I am reading stories that are 100 years old, such as this one (105 years, technically), because the language used can be antiquated - words that were used in 1921 to mean one thing can sometimes mean something quite different in 2026 - which can give an entirely different spin if one were to read it applying today's definitions! For instance, in the first chapter, when the author is describing Renfro, through the eyes of his parents, it is said that Mr. Horn "knew his son was queer" (p. 14); his mother, too, "that Renfro was queer" (p. 15); Mr. Horn even tells his wife, "Renfro is a little queer. None of us boys was the least like him. But he's clever with all his queer streaks..." (p. 15); and Mrs. Horn complained that if her son "had to read such queer stories, he should not do it in the middle of the night" (p. 16). A child reading the story today might take these descriptions in an entirely different way than they were intended back in 1921 - thus proving that context is definitely required when reading antiquarian books such as this!
There is a major continuity error I caught that took me out of the story for a brief moment. Midway through the story, when Mary is helping Renfro by watching the old Hall mansion, she later describes how she cut eye holes into the piece of wood covering a window so that she could see inside (pp. 138-39). Later in the story, when Renfro goes to the house in order to see if his suspicions are correct about who is living there, the author indicates "Renfro found his peep holes, which he had cut out a few nights before with his knife" (p. 176). Apparently the author forgot he had written Mary as the one who cut the holes, not Renfro. However, for a 241-page story, for there to be only one continuity error such as this, I think it can be forgiven.
Definitely a fun story, with a perky little hero and his determined sidekick - truly a shame we did not get more adventures of Renfro and Mary!
RATING: 9 mysterious lights over the Indian graves out of 10 for damp caves, haunted houses, courteous kidnappers, and fun-filled mystery in one of the shortest series ever published!
