56 Weeks with Nancy Drew - The Haunted Bridge

Book 15

Welcome to the 56 Weeks with Nancy Drew series! If you are new here, welcome. You can find my introductory post to this series here. Please note I will be including plot spoilers in this review series. I explain my reasoning at the start of this post.

Editions pictured: OT (25 chapters, 220 pages); RT (20 chapters, 180 pages)

OT publication date: 1937

My OT edition printed: approx. 1942

OT cover illustrated by: Russell Tandy

RT publication date: 1972

My RT edition printed: approx. 1972

RT cover illustrated by: Rudy Nappi

Ghostwriter: Mildred A. Wirt Benson

Editors: Edna Stratemeyer Squier & Harriet Stratemeyer Adams

Revised by: Priscilla Baker-Carr

OT & RT setting: Deer Mountain Hotel (a summer resort with a championship golf course), Andover (town near the hotel)

Introduction

I’ve been enjoying the experience of reading both the original text (OT) and the revised text (RT) Nancy Drews so much that when I saw an early edition of The Haunted Bridge with a dust wrapper, and for a reasonable price, I had to order it. I would love to be able to blame my waiting for that book to arrive as the reason this post is going up so much later than planned. But the book was annoyingly prompt in arriving at my door! The problem was getting myself to read the thing. I found the OT to be shockingly similar to the RT. It was so similar that reading these within the same month felt like trying to read the same book twice in a row. If you are filling in the gaps in your Nancy Drew collection I would say you could hold off on acquiring the alternate version of this one. There are other titles in this series that differ greatly between the two versions, but The Haunted Bridge is not one of them.

Synopsis

Nancy Drew and her friends, Bess Marvin and George Fayne, are visiting Deer Mountain Hotel with Nancy’s father, Carson Drew, who is there on legal business. The summer resort boasts many sporting activities, in addition to a champion golf course, which is where the girls spend most of their days. It’s the lead up to a championship tournament for amateur golfers and the club’s golf pro has urged Nancy to enter. Nancy is playing a qualifying round when she drives her ball into a patch of woods bordering the sixteenth hole. Nancy is keen to retrieve her lost ball as it is one signed by Jimmy Harlow. But Nancy’s caddy refuses to go near the footbridge which stands at the other side of the woods. Apparently, the bridge is haunted and all of the caddies are scared of the woods! But we know by now that Nancy doesn’t believe in spooks. Nevertheless, she is eager to find out what it is that has the caddies so afraid of the spot. 

Nancy soon discovers that the ghost is a rigged up scarecrow and the moaning sound is nothing more than the wind in the trees. But someone has gone to some length to deter people from exploring the woods and Nancy wants to know why. In her investigation, Nancy finds a chest on the muddy riverbank, which turns out to be chock full of jewelry. Meanwhile, Carson Drew has been investigating a notorious smuggling gang and guess what they’ve been smuggling? Jewels! Nancy suspects the chest of jewelry has something to do with these international jewel thieves. Carson Drew gets Nancy’s help by going around to the hotels in the area on the lookout for a suspect who is supposed to have a jewelled compact mirror in her possession. Inside the compact there is said to be a photo of a little boy. In a hotel powder room, Nancy strikes up a conversation with a woman who has a jewelled compact, but there is no photo inside. Logically, the photo could simply have been removed, but Nancy doesn’t believe the kind woman she talked to could be a jewel thief. Besides, when she complimented the woman about the eye-catching compact, the woman had been perfectly willing to talk about it and show it to Nancy. (As we all know, in Nancy Drew Land, baddies act suspiciously, and have cruel faces!)

But there is also a loyal gardener living in a cabin in the woods that has outdoor enclosures filled with injured or orphaned wild animals. The man still potters around the garden of the Judson mansion even though the family haven’t been back to the property since the big fire that demolished the place. When the gardener gets injured and needs round-the-clock care, Ned and his friends arrive on the scene just in time to offer their services. 

As all of this is going on, Nancy is competing in a golf tournament, which she fits her sleuthing around. Things are looking good for Nancy, that is until she falls off a balcony into some bushes when she tries to avoid coming into close contact with unwanted male attention. Mortimer Bartescue, or Martin, as he is called in the RT, is the kind of many any woman in their right mind would gladly throw themselves off a balcony to avoid. Unfortunately, Nancy painfully injures her hand, which makes it difficult to play golf. But, lucky for Nancy, even an injured hand and an accusation of cheating doesn’t prevent her from winning the tournament, finding the missing Judson girl, reuniting a couple, uncovering a band of international jewel thieves, and solving the mystery of the haunted bridge. Not that the “haunted bridge” really has anything to do with the rest of the story, but it is an undeniably intriguing title!

Reading the same book twice

I should say that unlike what I have done in the past, I did not take extensive notes on these books as I was reading. I am sure with a closer reading one would discover more differences than the few I picked out. The biggest differences I found were the fact that in the RT Mortimer Bartescue was changed to Martin Bartescue. Perhaps Mortimer was not as fashionable a name in 1972 as it was in 1937. I cannot say I have ever met a Mortimer, so maybe the name change wasn’t such a bad idea.

But the biggest difference I noted is the addition of Burt and Dave to the RT. These friends of Ned Nickerson’s from college are introduced in the RT as “Burt Eddleton, George’s friend, and Dave Evans, who dated Bess” (RT 94). In the OT Ned arrives at Deer Mountain Hotel with Bud Mason and Bill Cowan, who are first referred to as “two strange youths” (OT 120). I don’t believe we get any description that distinguishes them from each other, despite this being the first time Nancy or the other girls are introduced to them. As far as I can tell they are only there so that Ned has help looking after Joe Haley, the gardener, and so that when the group go to one of the hotel dances, there is an even number of males to females.

One scene, two books

I thought I’d pick a favourite scene to display just how similar these books are. The bolded text is where the two versions differ. The two instances where wording has simply been altered have been italicized. 

First we have the scene in the OT.

[T]he girls made their way toward the haunted bridge. Dark clouds were moving swiftly overhead, and by the time the chums reached the woods a strong wind was blowing.

"Do you think it will rain soon?" Bess asked anxiously, scanning the sky overhead.

"Oh, not for an hour at least," Nancy replied carelessly. "Even if it should, we'll be partially protected by trees. Let's not turn back now."

The girls struck off through the timber, and soon were within view of the old bridge. With the sun under a cloud it was dark and gloomy beneath the canopy of trees. Bess shivered and kept close to her companions. Suddenly they were startled to hear the same groaning sound which had frightened them on their previous visit.

"Oh!" Bess squealed in terror, clutching George's arm. "There it is again!"

Nancy warned her to be quiet, and for several minutes the girls stood perfectly still, waiting for the sound to be repeated. No one could be seen anywhere near the bridge.

"I believe the noise came from far down the ravine," Nancy whispered after she was convinced that the groan would not be repeated. "Come on, let's investigate."

After briefly searching the locality near the bridge, the girls turned their attention to the trail which had interested them upon their first visit to the spot. Footprints were plainly visible. Nancy wondered if someone had not used the path within the past twenty-four hours.

"Let's not go that way today," Bess pleaded, reading her chum's thoughts. "It's growing darker every instant, and we don't want to be caught in a storm."

Scarcely had the words been spoken when a shrill scream broke the stillness of the forest.

This time Nancy was certain that the cry had come from far down the ravine.

"Come on!" she urged excitedly. "We'll solve this old mystery yet!" (OT 109-10)

Now, for the same scene in the RT.

The girls made their way toward the haunted bridge. Dark clouds were moving swiftly overhead, and by the time they reached the woods a strong wind was blowing.

Soon they were within view of the old bridge.

Bess shivered and kept close to her companions.

Suddenly they were startled to hear the same moaning and groaning sounds which had perplexed them on their first visit.

"Oh!" Bess squealed, clutching George's arm.

Nancy warned her to be quiet, and for several minutes the girls stood perfectly still, waiting for the sound to be repeated. There was only a rustle of leaves in the breeze.

"I believe the noise came from somewhere right around here," said Nancy. "Let's investigate. Maybe we'll find someone's in hiding, playing a joke."

The girls searched through the brush and trees near both ends of the bridge, but found no one. Then they explored the trail they had seen on their previous visit which led along the ravine. Footprints were clearly visible. Had someone used the path within the past twenty-four hours?

A moment later a shrill scream broke the stillness. This time Nancy was certain that the cry had come from some distance up the ravine.

"Let's go!" she urged excitedly. "We'll solve the mystery of these strange sounds yet!" (RT 88-89)

As you can see the two texts are remarkably similar. The passage from the OT is 310 words while the RT is 214, which means 31% has been cut from the OT. But as the OT is 220 pages in its entirety and the RT is 180 pages, I would say that on average 19% of the OT has been cut. This is just an estimate, of course, because we are comparing page numbers, not word count. For the most part all that has been removed from the RT is description. Although, in the RT Nancy suggests that the sounds might be from someone “playing a joke”, which diffuses some of the tension. In the OT there is no such explanation offered, and the tension is left to continue to build as the scene plays out. I think most of us would agree that the OT is more atmospheric, but when you are aiming to cut down a text it does make the most sense to start with anything that could be construed as unessential. I must admit that it wasn’t until I was reading these two passages side by side that I was aware there was any difference, besides the change from the friends being referred to as “the chums” to simply “they”. 

Final thoughts

In my opinion, the person who revised the OT, Priscilla Baker-Carr, did a wonderful job. As I said at the outset, I felt like I was reading the same book twice. Nothing important had been altered and I think that readers who are most familiar with the OT could read the RT of this one and recognize the same Nancy. But I wonder if this is because The Haunted Bridge is a fairly tame book. This isn’t a book full of dramatic scenes like some of the other Nancy Drews I have read in the OT. For example, the OT of The Whispering Statue has Nancy save two people from a burning plane that has crash landed in the ocean. In that same book a house set on eroding cliffs is taken by the sea with Nancy inside! Both versions of The Haunted Bridge have a lot of golf, some dances, a bit of exploring in the woods, a suspected forger is locked in a caddy club house until the authorities arrive, Nancy, Bess, and George surreptitiously follow a car, and Nancy confronts a thief with a lot of backup near by, and that’s about it! Minus a brief scene when Nancy falls through a bridge and gets swept away by a storm swollen stream, The Haunted Bridge doesn’t go in for big drama and there was very little bonkersness. I cannot believe I am saying this, because I’ve never thought of myself as a fan of the less believable aspects of these books, but I think more drama and bonkersness would have made this a better book.

Coming up next…

Next time, I will be discussing the Nancy Drew with Persian kittens, tap dancing, Morse code, and a secret room. It’s The Clue of the Tapping Heels. I can assure you that we are in for bonkersness in spades with this one!

While you’re waiting for me to come up the goods, why not check out my new favourite podcast, Regular Nancy Drew? As always, I am late to the party on this one. Regular Nancy Drew has been recording since early 2021 and they already have 92 episodes in the bank. Listening to the hosts, Becky and Kori, is like chatting with your best friends about Nancy Drew. You can find Regular Nancy Drew just about anywhere you can listen to podcasts. But I must warn you that just like your favourite Nancy Drew, it’s very addictive. My friend and fellow Nancy Drew fan, the talented author, Barbara Matteson, introduced me to this podcast three weeks ago and I’ve been listening to about one episode a day ever since. It is so good!

The Camomile by Catherine Carswell

Catherine Carswell’s book, The Camomile is about a woman who rents a room close to home, so she can focus on her creative pursuits. Recently returned home to Glasgow after studying music at a conservatory in Frankfort, Ellen Carstairs initially wants a place to practice the piano without being interrupted by her intrusive aunt, but it is writing that soon becomes Ellen’s primary focus.

The book is divided into three parts, starting with a letter dated 2 September, which Ellen writes to Ruby Marcus, a friend from the conservatory, who like Ellen has moved back home after finishing her training. In fact, the entire book is like one long letter to Ruby, because the second part is a journal addressed to Ruby, which Ellen mails off in parts. The third section is another letter to Ruby. This one dated 8 December, a year and three months on from the start of the book.

But—though it took us so long to realise it fully—you and I were both there under false pretences. You were there because you loved all the arts and had to escape from West Hampstead, I because I loved all the arts and had to get away from Glasgow. And though we had both been buttered up by our silly music-teachers into the belief that because we had general artistic taste music was our gift, I think we always ‘knew in our souls,’ as Boris used to say, that nothing comes of choosing an art; the art must choose you. I daresay it was party this that made us such friends right from the beginning.

Meanwhile here we are, both back in the places we worked so had and lied so stoutly to escape from, both faced with the necessity of justifying our brief escape by giving music lessons for money. It all seems very strange to me. (11-12)

Ellen talks about the everyday struggles with living in a close knit community and wanting to have a claim in her personal freedom. She quickly discovers that having a room to work in does not mean that you will always be able to get work done there. At one point she lists the advantages verses the disadvantages of her room, with the disadvantages far outweighing the advantages. Some of disadvantages are very funny indeed. My favourites being, number two, “Cats (many outside, one—not a nice one—inside)” and number 14 “Boy in the lane with an instrument giving lifelike imitation of cats” (29).

But I think the journal entry from 20 December perfectly captures what it is to have the physical space for your creative pursuits, but still finding there are other road blocks in the way of being creative.

For once I am going to write in this in the morning. Generally I don't let myself touch it till night. But of late writing at night has turned my head into a rookery, with ideas for the rooks, caw-cawing by the hour, but never getting any farther, and serving no end but to keep me hopelessly awake when I want to sleep.

After playing at Miss Sutherland's school this morning and giving lessons to the very unmusical Lockhart children, I went to my Room meaning to practise. But the whole house smelt so fusty and steamy, with a washing going on just under my window, that I fled.

Now I am sitting in the Botanic Gardens. Though the puddles are frozen in the shade, you could sit out for ever so long in the sun without feeling cold. (40)

I can picture Ellen huddled on a bench in the cold to scribble in her notebook and trying to convince herself it really is very warm in the sunshine,—if where was any—whilst slowly losing feeling in her fingers.

At one point Ellen is reading an autobiography by an aristocratic woman that a friend insists on lending to her, because she claims Ellen is getting too solemn and serious. It’s not the type of thing Ellen would normally read, and Ellen is confused as to why her friend thought it would help cheer her up, because the more she thinks about it, the more she realizes that the life of an aristocrat wouldn’t suit her at all. 

I need so much leisure and being by myself doing nothing in particular, and she seems always to have done everything in company. I do love meeting people, but a whole day with them nearly kills me. Having to be socially polite for a couple of hours at a stretch makes my face ache all over. (91)

It’s just five pages later that Ellen’s love interest is first mentioned. There are too many red flags to the relationship to share them all, but this one stuck with me. When she asks him how he would feel if “instead of playing tennis and things I wanted to sit dully at home writing ‘highbrow’ stories” after they are married, he assures her that she won’t want to do that.

[H]e would never like to stand in my way, but he thought I was ‘so much a woman’ that what I suggested was unlikely to happen. ‘Life,’ he said, ‘is a bigger affair than books, and life is pre-eminently your business. Wait till your hands are full of life, and I doubt if you will have the time or the wish to add to the mass of feminine writings already in the world.’ This, I must say, deeply impressed me. (163-64)

This felt distinctly similar to a passage in Sylvia Plath’s 1963 novel, The Bell Jar. 

I also remembered Buddy Willard saying in a sinister, knowing way that after I had children I would feel differently, I wouldn’t want to write poems any more. So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterwards you went about numb as a slave in some private, totalitarian state. (The Bell Jar 81)

Surprisingly, it is the book that was published earlier which offers hope for a character who feels the attraction to two things, being a wife and being a writer, which she has been lead to believe are mutually exclusive. As we find out at the beginning of The Bell Jar, Esther Greenwood has a baby, but there is no mention of her being a writer. While Ellen Carstairs’ story ends with a section called ‘Also, Vorwärts!’. In reminding her friend Ruby of this encouraging cry which was a favourite of their music teacher, Ellen is urging Ruby as much as herself to move forwards, march onwards. It is distinctly optimistic.

According to the back cover of The Camomile, Catherine Carswell’s book is “widely considered a fictional counterpart to Virginia Woolf’s ‘A Room of One’s Own’”. Originally published in 1922, The Camomile, predates both ‘A Room of One’s Own’, published in 1929 and the 1928 Cambridge lectures the essay grew out of. This begs the question, did Woolf read The Camomile and could she have found inspiration in Carswell’s writing? Did Sylvia Plath, for that matter? Perhaps. However, it seems more likely that all of these writers were concerned with the pressing issues for women of their day, issues that continue to be of concern now. 

If there is to be a takeaway from this novel I think it is, at least in part, that the issues facing Ellen Carstairs are not solved by simply having a room and an income. A room is a start. And in this novel Ellen makes a start at carving out a space for herself and for her art. There is more work to be done, but if the last section heading, ‘Also, Vorwärts!’ is any indication, she is facing it from a position of vindication and optimism for the future. 

I found this book to be thought provoking and compelling. It was also a really enjoyable read. I think I will always list F. Tennyson Jesse’s A Pin to the See the Peepshow as my favourite book from the British Library Women Writers series, but this one is definitely up there. 

Thank you to British Library Publishing for kindly sending me a copy of The Camomile for review. All opinions on the book are my own.

Mr. Pottermack's Oversight by R. Austin Freeman

 

I’m not going to lie to you. The first thing that attracted me to Mr. Pottermack’s Oversight is it’s gorgeous cover. As I was whizzing through this book, I would occasionally stop to admire the cover, while I contemplated the fate of Mr. Pottermack. Originally published in 1930, the cover artwork of this edition comes from a Metropolitan Railway brochure designed by E.J. Kealey. In my opinion, everything about this cover is perfect, right down to the deep plum colour of the text block. 

The only problem with a book that has as eye-catching a cover as this one is that one’s hopes for enjoyment cannot help but be inflated. Well, I neglected all of my plans last weekend and finished this book in two days, because I was too captivated to put it down, so I would say Mr. Pottermack’s Oversight is well-deserving of an equally captivating cover.

Richard Austin Freeman is credited with creating the “inverted mystery” in 1910 with his short story “The Case of Oskar Brodski” published in Pearson’s Magazine. Also known as a “howcatchem”, the story is structured with the crime at the beginning, and usually reveals the identity of the perpetrator. Freeman uses this construct in Mr. Pottermack’s Oversight.

The novel opens with a man in prison garb running for his life as a sultry July afternoon slips into evening. Luck is on his side as he happens upon a bather’s clothes, and he manages to evade the guards pursing him. When we meet up with a man called Mr. Pottermack admiring a sundial in a mason’s yard in the sleepy village of Borley, Bucks, we know this is that same man in disguise, doing his best to keep a low profile. No wonder the motto on the sundial holds a special meaning for him. Sole orto: spes: decedente pax. “At the rising of the sun, hope: at the going down thereof, peace” (26).

Despite Mr. Pottermack’s efforts to move on with his life, a persistent blackmailer continues to make a nuisance of himself. When the blackmailer inserts himself into Mr. Pottermack’s life one time too many, Mr. Pottermack realizes that no matter how much money he gives the man, he will never be free as long as the blackmailer lives. 

As he sat, two sides of the sun-dial were visible to him, and on them he read the words “decedente pax.” He repeated them to himself, drawing from them a new confidence and encouragement. Why should it not be so? The storms that had scattered the hopes of his youth had surely blown themselves out. His evil genius, who had first betrayed him and then threatened to destroy utterly his hardly earned prosperity and security; who had cast him into the depths and had fastened upon him when he struggled to the surface; the evil genius, the active cause of all his misfortunes, was gone for ever and would certainly trouble him no more.

Then why should the autumn of his life not be an Indian summer of peace and tranquil happiness? Why not? (88-89)

But it is once Mr. Pottermack has gotten rid of the blackmailer for good that his troubles really begin. The case of the missing bank manager is brought to Dr. Thorndyke’s attention and something about it peaks his interest. Mr. Pottermack is a determined and methodical man, but is he clever enough to outwit Dr. Thorndyke, a man who lives for interesting cases and specializes in forensics?

Initially, this book felt a bit overwritten, but either it grew less so as the book went on, or I adjusted to the writing style, as I was soon luxuriating in Freeman’s prose. One might say the conclusion drags on a bit. Freeman could have left more for the reader to piece together for themselves. But I must admit, I did enjoy the telling. I wasn’t annoyed by Dr. Thorndyke for taking his time, while I have been known to get a bit antsy with Agatha Christie’s conclusions, specifically with Hercule Poirot as it often feels like he needlessly spins out the explanation of how he solved the crime. 

Dr. Thorndyke reminded me of a more likeable Sherlock Holmes with his focus on science and forensics. I do wonder if even readers in the 1930s would have been fully on board with how mummified remains are purchased and used in this novel. A modern reader will certainly have to suspend their disbelief, but it did make for entertaining reading, nonetheless.  

I found that Mr. Pottermack reminded me a bit of Tom Ripley, but I’m still not quite sure why. As much as I appreciate Patricia Highsmith’s writing, Ripley tends to make me feel sick to my stomach. Whereas with Freeman’s character, as much as I was interested to see how Dr. Thorndyke solved the mystery, I wanted Mr. Pottermack to get away with his crime. I’m not sure I would describe Mr. Pottermack as a likeable character, but the author does a stellar job making the reader believe this character deserves his freedom. Right to the very end, I kept wondering if Mr. Pottermack was going to get away with his crime.

This book starts in late July, then picks up in the same month fifteen years later, concluding in April. Despite it’s autumnal cover, I think this book would make an enjoyable read at any time of year. While an important scene takes place in early autumn, I think the cover is symbolic of a man who is at a crossroads. For Mr. Pottermack, middle age is complicated with impending imprisonment if he fails to get away with his crime. He dares to hope that instead of facing the autumn of his life, a last Indian summer might remain for him instead of an early winter. You will have to read it to find out if Mr. Pottermack gets his wish. 

Thank you to British Library Publishing for kindly sending me a copy of Mr. Pottermack’s Oversight for review. All opinions on the book are my own.