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The Mystery of the Talking Skull

The Three Investigators

#11 The Mystery of the Talking Skull by Robert Arthur, 1969.

Jupiter reads in the newspaper about a public auction of luggage abandoned at hotels. He is curious about the auction and persuades Bob and Pete to come with him. On a whim, Jupiter bids on an old trunk at the auction and gets it for a dollar. Even the auctioneers don’t know what’s in the trunk because it’s locked. However, shortly after Jupiter buys the trunk, others show up offering to buy it from him.

It turns out that the trunk used to belong to a magician called the Great Gulliver, who disappeared about a year earlier. His signature trick was a talking skull called Socrates, which is still inside the trunk. The Three Investigators study the skull because Jupiter is curious to see how the trick works, but he can’t find anything about the skull that would explain how the trick was done. However, when the skull begins to speak to the boys, it suggests an even more puzzling mystery.

In the middle of the night, the skull tells Jupiter to go to a certain address and use the skull’s name, Socrates, as the password. When Jupiter goes there, he meets a gypsy fortune teller called Zelda, who tells him that Gulliver isn’t dead but he’s no longer among the living. She also tells him that there are people who want money, but the money they want is hidden. Zelda says that maybe Jupiter can help, and she tells him to protect the trunk and listen to anything else the skull might say.

When the Three Investigators look through the trunk again, they find a letter hidden inside, under the lining. The letter is from a man Gulliver once knew in prison, Spike Neely. The man was dying, and he wanted to tell Gulliver where he hid some money he stole years before. Because he knew the authorities would read any letter he sent, he could only hint at the location. The letter was short, and it doesn’t seem to say much, but The Three Investigators are sure that there’s a clue to where Spike hid the money somewhere in the letter.

However, The Three Investigators find themselves questioning how much they want to investigate this particular mystery. Jupiter was followed by a strange car on the way home from Zelda’s, probably the men Zelda spoke of who are looking for the money. Then, Jupiter’s Aunt Mathilda gets spooked by the skull when it says “boo” to her, and she tells Jupiter to get rid of it. The boys decide to sell the trunk to Maximilian, a magician who was interested in buying it for the sake of the talking skull and other tricks inside. When Maximilian takes the trunk, they think that’s going to be the end of the matter for them, but the next day, Police Chief Reynolds comes to see them because Maximilian was in a car accident. He says that another car forced him off the road and a couple of men stole the trunk!

Chief Reynolds tries to see Zelda, since she seemed to know something about the hidden money, but when he goes to the address where Jupiter met her, Zelda and the other gypsies are gone. Then, somebody mails the trunk back to Jupiter! When the boys open the trunk again, Socrates the skull says, “Hurry! Find–the clue.” It looks like they’re on a hunt for stolen money whether they like it or not!

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction

The idea of a mysterious talking skull that used to belong to a vanished magician is exciting by itself, and I remember liking this story the first time I read it. As an adult, the parts about the gypsies seem a little cringey, the stereotypical stuff of vintage children’s books. A mysterious fortune teller is compelling and reminds me of similar type characters that appeared in the original Scooby-Doo cartoons, but The Three Investigators aren’t really big on accuracy when it comes to cultural representations. That sort of thing never occurred to me as a kid. All I cared about was an interesting story, and this book does have that. It’s just that, when you’re an adult and you know more about the world, you can tell when a character or culture is really just a cardboard cutout with no depth to it, more of a stock element pulled out of an old bag of tricks, and it hits you differently.

The talking skull element was cool, and I loved the idea of buying a mystery trunk cheaply and finding an amazing mystery in side. It’s the sort of thing I would have loved to do or envision doing as a kid, although in real life, the contents of the trunk would probably have turned out to be far less exciting, like a bunch of rusty hardware or somebody’s collection of water-damaged magazines. It’s that sense that, when you open it, there could be anything inside that’s compelling, and the best books have that sense of anticipation, too.

The solution to this mystery involves the Three Investigators examining the letter to figure out where Spike hid the clue to finding his loot. There is one part of his letter that seems to hint at something personal, a person who doesn’t really seem to exist, but that’s only half of the clue. The other part lies in the stamps he used and also in Spike’s distinctive trait of having trouble pronouncing words with the letter ‘L’ in them. It’s the sort of multi-layered clue that might appear in a Sherlock Holmes story. From there, the Three Investigators have to track down the house that Spike’s sister owned, where he was apprehended after the robbery, which proves more difficult than they anticipated because all of the houses from that neighborhood have been moved to a new location and were given new numbers. There were parts of the treasure hunt that were exciting and others that seemed to drag a little, but there are definitely some violent characters looking for the money, too.

Someone is obviously using the Three Investigators to try to find the money on their behalf, urging them on by using the talking skull, and that adds layers to the mystery. Who is trying to use them to solve the mystery, or is it more than one person or group of people? When people approach them with information or ask for their help, who can they trust? By the end of the story, we do learn where Gulliver is (if you haven’t guess it already) and the full story behind Spike hiding the money and what led to Gulliver’s disappearance.

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The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place

The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place by Julie Berry, 2014.

The story is set in England in 1890. There are seven girls at the proper Victorian boarding school known as Saint Ethelreda’s School for Young Ladies on Prickwillow Road in Ely. As the beginning sections of the book explain when they introduce the girls and members of their families and acquaintances, they were all sent to Saint Ethelreda’s because their families want them to become proper Victorian young ladies, ready to make suitable and socially-acceptably marriages. Some of the girls have defects in their characters or personal interests that are considered entirely unsuitable, and their families are hoping that the school’s discipline and propriety will cure them.

The seven girls are:

“Dear” Roberta Pratley – Her mother died while she was still young, and her father remarried. It was her stepmother’s idea to send her to boarding school, thinking her too soft, clumsy, awkward, and overindulged by her late mother. Her stepmother hopes that boarding school will strengthen her and turn her into a more graceful young lady. Roberta is known for being gentle and kind. She’s good at sewing.

“Disgraceful” Mary Jane Marshall – She was sent to boarding school by her mother, who has noticed that Mary Jane, while still rather young, is very pretty and precociously flirtatious, with a tendency to attract disreputable and penniless young men. Worse still, Mary Jane enjoys the company of these disreputable young men and regularly slips away from her mother to see them on the sly. Fearful that Mary Jane’s recklessness with young men will lead her into a disastrous marriage too early in life, her mother enrolled her in an all-female boarding school to keep her away from boys and, hopefully, give her a chance to mature and improve herself. So far, it’s not working. The only non-disreputable young man who interests her is the young local police constable.

“Dull” Martha Boyle – Martha has four brothers at home who make her life miserable with their pranks and teasing. Boarding school gives her an escape from them. She isn’t considered very bright, but she has a talent for music. She has a crush on a nearby farmer’s son.

“Stout” Alice Brooks – Poor Alice has a tendency to put on weight and is often compared unfavorably to her cousin Isabelle, who seems to be able to eat anything she wants without putting on an ounce. Alice doesn’t really hate Isabelle for this, but she’s tired of her grandmother’s criticism over it. She has a crush on a young law clerk.

“Smooth” Kitty Heaton – Kitty’s mother died when she was only four years old, and Kitty has no other siblings, which is a disappointment to her father, who hoped for a son to take over his business enterprises one day. Kitty’s father largely ignores her, and he has not yet noticed that Kitty is developing some shrewd business skills herself.

“Pocked” Louise Dudley – Louise’s face is scarred because she contracted smallpox at a young age. She survived this potentially-deadly illness because her devoted uncle, a talented doctor, nursed her through it. Ever since, she has revered her uncle and looks up to him as a mentor. Her uncle enjoys sharing his scientific and medical knowledge with her, he encourages her studies, and he thinks that she has the potential to a be doctor herself. Unfortunately, Louise’s parents don’t think that this is a proper profession for a young lady, so they sent her to boarding school to learn the kind of skills young ladies need to know to be wives and mothers. However, Louise has not given up her scientific interests.

“Dour” Elinor Siever – Elinor has a macabre side to her personality. Actually, her macabre side is most of her personality. When she was younger, she started sneaking out at night to explore, and she watched with fascination as the old grave digger in her town exhumed bodies to rob them or sell them for medical experiments. When the old grave digger spotted her watching him, she gave him a fright, and when her parents found out what she’d been doing, they packed her off to boarding school to put an end to this morbid interest and encourage her to be a sweeter, more cheerful, and more normal girl. None of that is working, but her morbid interests are about to come in handy when death comes to the little school.

One evening, while the headmistress of the girls’ school is dining with her visiting brother, both the headmistress and her brother are poisoned. The girls are saved because they were not eating the same food. Realizing that the headmistress and her brother are dead and quickly concluding that they were murdered, the girls debate about what to do. They consider calling a doctor, but it’s obviously too late for that. They could get the police, but before they do, the girls stop to consider what this will mean for themselves.

They have no idea who poisoned the headmistress and her brother. The girls prepared the food they were eating, so the poisoner could have even been one of them, or at least, they could be potential suspects. At the very least, the death of the headmistress means the end of the school, and the girls will all be sent home to their families. The truth is that the girls don’t want to go home. Each of them has some sort of tension at home or a reason why they were sent away, and they’ve all become like sisters to each other. More than anything, they want to be able to stay together and have some freedom from their tensions at home.

With their headmistress gone and no adults around to tell them what to do, what not to do, or how to be, the girls realize that they have unprecedented freedom to do as they like and be themselves, but that’s not going to last if they’re suspected of murder. Kitty is the first to suggest that they not tell anyone that the headmistress and her brother are dead, but she’s also the first to realize that, if they don’t find out who killed them, there will be a scandal, and each of the girls will be under suspicion for the rest of their lives. While Kitty relishes the idea of taking charge of the other girls and having them organize their own lessons and self-study from now on, according to the subjects that interest each of them the most, they also need to investigate and solve the murders. There is little hope for any of their future prospects if they have to go through life as murder suspects.

Their first problem arises when some friends of the headmistress and her brother show up unexpectedly as part of a surprise party for the brother’s birthday. Acting quickly, the girls hide the bodies and convince the guests that the brother has gone to India suddenly to tend to a sick relative and their headmistress has gone to bed because she was feeling unwell. However, one of the girls accidentally injures the ankle of the choir teacher, who has to spend the night at the school, causing them further complications. Desperately, the girls try to cover up the fact that their headmistress is dead and buy themselves time to investigate.

Although none of the girls is what their families consider a proper Victorian young lady, they each have skills that are useful to their deception and investigation. Kitty is good at organizing and managing people, and Mary Jane knows how to charm them. Elinor isn’t afraid of handling the dead, and Louise has scientific knowledge. Alice is the right size to pose for their headmistress in her clothes, and she has some acting ability.

Can the girls find the real murderer before someone figures out that two murders have taken place and blame the girls for them? What will the girls do if it turns out that the murderer is one of them? And, if it’s not one of them, what’s to stop the murderer from trying to kill again if he believes the girls’ ruse that their headmistress is still alive?

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction

This is a humorous mystery with delightful characters! Although none of the girls is quite what their families or society wishes they were, readers will see that some of their supposed defects are actually strengths and skills. The humor in the story is dark, and the girls are unsentimental about the deaths of their annoying headmistress and her odious brother. They explain the reasons for their lack of sentimentality through their explanations of the victims’ characters. Neither of them was ever very nice to the girls, and they both had dark sides to their personalities.

Because some of the girls have morbid tendencies or possibly scandalous sides to their personalities that they need to cover up, it is plausible from the beginning that one of them could have had a reason to kill the headmistress, leaving readers more in suspense about the identity of the murderer. Although the girls love each other like sisters, there are moments when even they question whether they can really trust each other. However, the introduction of the headmistress’s friends and associates add other possible suspects to consider.

The first half of the book is largely about the girls getting themselves organized and covering up the deaths of the headmistress and her brother. They get more into solving the murders about halfway through the book, although they begin developing suspicions before that. I was pretty sure from the beginning that none of the girls did it, although the book does a good job of making it plausible that they could have. However, the girls soon learn that there were sides to their headmistress and her brother that they didn’t know about.

Early on, I had a theory that there could be more than one murderer involved. The headmistress and her brother didn’t seem to have exactly the same symptoms when they died, so I thought that it was possible that they were poisoned by different people coincidentally at the same meal. That’s not quite the right answer, although the parts of the story that made me think so are actual clues to what really happened. There are multiple villains in the story, some working together and some not. Some of what I suspected turned out to be true, but not all of it, and I didn’t figure out the whole situation before the characters explained it.

During the course of their adventures, the girls remain friends, and they also come to realize some things about themselves. Some of the girls develop budding romantic interests. Whether or not those fully develop, we don’t know, but it appears that there’s someone out there for everyone. Even Elinor finds someone to bond with over her morbid fascination for death. Some of the girls also come to realize talents they didn’t fully consider before and begin developing ambitions for their future. Kitty comes to reckon with her father’s lack of interest and emotional connection with her, and she also comes to realize that she shares some traits with him, even some of the less desirable ones. She realizes that she doesn’t want to be like her father, cold and commanding. While she felt little for her old headmistress, she was primarily motivated by her warm feelings for her best friends and fellow students, whom she regards as sisters. Because of her father’s detachment, she desperately guards the only warm connections she has in her life. Fortunately, the book has a happy ending. Circumstances allow the girls to continue with their education together in a way that supports all of their interests and under the guidance of someone who truly cares for them and understands them.

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The Callender Papers

The Callender Papers by Cynthia Voigt, 1983.

For as far back as Jean can remember, she was raised by her Aunt Constance Wainwright at her school for girls. Jean knows that she’s an orphan, and technically, Aunt Constance isn’t a blood relative, but the two of them are very close. Aunt Constance has always been like a mother to Jean, and Jean has no memory of her birth mother. Jean’s ambition is to become a teacher like Aunt Constance and continue working and living at Aunt Constance’s school. It’s the summer of 1894, when Jean is almost 13 years old, when events begin happening that change Jean’s life forever and give her a new perspective on her past.

Jean is young, but she receives an unexpected job offer for the summer from Daniel Thiel, one of the trustees of the school. He is a regular visitor at school dinners, where he and Aunt Constance tend to debate each other. He has asked for Jean to come and help him to sort through and process the Callender papers, which were left to him, along with the large house in the countryside, where he lives, after the death of his wife. The reason why he wants Jean’s help is that she’s had enough education and some knowledge of other languages to read through and process the papers, and she’s too young for the people in the small town nearby to gossip about her having a romantic relationship with him. Jean is tempted by the job because it’s the first real job offer she’s ever had, and she knows that she will need money to continue her education.

Before she accepts, however, her Aunt Constance talks to her about Daniel Thiel’s history and the history of the Callender family. Daniel Thiel is now an artist, but when he was a young man, he refused to fight in the American Civil War. (The book refers to it as “the War Between the States”, an old name for it.) He was one of the “Hiders”, young men who ran away and went into hiding rather than be pressured to fight. Jean isn’t sure that she approves of this, and she knows that Aunt Cynthia’s brothers died in the war. However, even though Daniel Thiel was considered a disgrace for running away and hiding, he later returned to the area where he had grown up and married Irene Callender, the daughter of the wealthy Callender family. Irene was somewhat unfortunate because her mother died when she was young, and she largely raised her younger brother, Enoch. She had not originally expected to marry, but she married Daniel Thiel later in life, after Enoch was grown and married himself. Together, she and Daniel Thiel had a child of their own, but Irene died under mysterious circumstances while the child was very young. Since then, Daniel Thiel has been a recluse, and nobody knows what happened to his child.

Aunt Constance has no objection to Jean taking a job from Daniel Thiel because she thinks he’s a good man, in spite of some of their personal differences. What worries her about this job is the other people in the area. She’s not sure that she approves of them. However, she agrees to let Jean accept the job.

Jean is excited at first about this job, which will allow her to earn money to further her education. However, when she actually leaves her aunt’s school, she becomes nervous. It’s her first time being away from her aunt and the school she’s called home for as long as she can remember, and Daniel Thiel seems like a strange, temperamental man, who mostly prefers to be left alone. He has a housekeeper who has her own sad history, having once been sent to prison for stealing something from Enoch Callender to help her sick brother when her family was desperate for money. Jean realizes that Daniel Thiel does support good causes and likes to help people, but he doesn’t like to get much attention for it.

When Jean begins working with the Callender papers, sorting through them, organizing them, and deciding what’s important, she’s a little nervous at first about her ability to discern what’s important. Daniel Thiel talks to her a little about it and assures her that she can understand what’s important. The more Jean reads through the documents, the more real the Callender family seems to Jean, and the more she is drawn to the details of their lives, wanting to know more about them.

Daniel Thiel’s brother-in-law, Enoch Callender, still lives nearby with his wife and children. Soon after Jean’s arrival, Enoch meets up with her, seemingly by accident and plays a game with her at guessing her name. Jean is amazed when he guesses correctly. Enoch asks Jean questions about her life and where she came from, and Jean finds herself telling him more about her background than she expected. Enoch also tells Jean a little about his own family. The Callender family used to live in New York, and Enoch really prefers life in the city. He has ambitions for his children and feels bored and stifled in the countryside. He has no real profession himself. He admits that he was spoiled by his sister, Irene, who raised him, and he explains that Irene died ten years before, under odd circumstances. His father died around the same time. Then, he shows Jean something that he says was a secret between himself and Irene – a board that acts as a bridge over a river. Jean thinks it looks dangerous, but Enoch crosses it himself and bounces on it to prove that it’s safe. He tells Jean that she can also use this crossing.

Jean finds Enoch Callender charming but at the same time disturbing, and she can’t forget that he is the one who sent Daniel Thiel’s housekeeper to prison for a minor crime that she committed out of desperation. Jean asks Daniel Thiel more about the history of Enoch Callender and the housekeeper. She learns that the Enoch’s father and sister had both tried to persuade Enoch to not press charges, and when he insisted on pressing charges anyway, Enoch’s father paid for the housekeeper’s defense in court. Jean realizes that the Callenders were caring people, but Enoch was the exception. Enoch was technically in the right legally but at the same time, he was needlessly cruel.

Jean befriends a local boy named Oliver, who prefers to be called Mack, and begins tutoring him in Latin. Mack witnessed the meeting between Jean and Enoch, and he comments that, what seemed like an accidental encounter to Jean was actually done on purpose by Enoch. Mack doesn’t trust Enoch, and although locals somewhat keep their distance from the housekeeper since she was in prison, they also blame Enoch for what happened. Jean is annoyed at Mack’s description of the charming Enoch as being untrustworthy, and they quarrel about it, but there is also some truth to what Mack says.

Jean is beginning to see what Aunt Constance meant about not being sure about the people living in this area. People here aren’t quite what they seem. The locals are suspicious of people like Daniel Thiel and his housekeeper, whose pasts are strange and tragic, but yet, Daniel Thiel and his housekeeper seem like good people to Jean. Charming people like Enoch also have dark sides, and past incidents seem to haunt everyone there. Mack explains more to Jean about the mysterious death of Daniel Thiel’s wife, who died from injuries from a fall. Local people think maybe she was actually murdered, and they look suspiciously at Daniel Thiel. They also wonder what happened to Daniel Thiel’s small child, who also mysteriously disappeared after his wife died. He brought in a nurse to take care of the child, and one day, the nurse and child both disappeared, nobody ever saw them again, and Daniel Thiel refuses to talk about them, as if they never existed.

When Enoch talks about the past, he thinks it’s unfair that his bringing charges of theft against the housekeeper has earned him disapproval from other people because, after all, she did steal from him, and he was only doing the right thing under the law. He also chatters and laments to Jean about his family’s prospects. His eldest son, Joseph, is charmer, like his father, and his family hopes that he will marry well. They think that will be the best solution to securing the family’s future. Joseph doesn’t have any particular profession in mind for his future other than that. Enoch’s daughter is also expected/hopeful that she will marry well. The younger son, Benjamin, is more ambitious but seems to have little idea how to go about his ambitions. Enoch thinks that their futures will be better elsewhere, but money is always an issue, and he is tied to this location because the old Callender fortune is here, and the family’s old will, which controls the family’s fortunes is complicated. Jean can tell that Enoch’s wife and children aren’t happy, and Enoch’s wife tearfully confides to Jean that she thinks that she and their children are disappointing to Enoch. Enoch admits that he spends more time ruminating on old wounds than trying to do anything useful with his life. Enoch says that he wonders and worries about what happened to his daughter’s missing child, and Jean feels for him. When she talks to Enoch, he charms her, and Jean finds it difficult to believe too badly of him, in spite of indications that he has done wrong.

As Jean continues to sort through the Callender papers and learns more about the Callenders, Daniel Thiel, and the past events that still haunt this community, she finds herself trying to sort through the good and evil people who surround her and trying to decide which is which. She finds herself questioning what she really knows about people and whether she can really tell what their true natures are. What really happened to Irene Callender Thiel ten years ago, and where is her child? Could Daniel Thiel have murdered them, or has he been wrongly suspected all this time? Could the answers to all of these questions and more be contained in the Callender papers that Jean has been hired to sort through? Jean must come to understand the truth about the Callenders because her life is now also in danger! There are things about the Callenders that someone doesn’t want anyone to know. Jean is getting too close to the answers and is a bigger threat to someone than she ever suspected.

The book won the Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1984. It’s recommended for ages 9 to 13. It is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction and Some Spoilers

I don’t want to spoil the mystery too much because that’s what makes the story exciting. The mystery is based on an understanding of past events in this family and community. The incident with the housekeeper was just part of a chain of quarrels, disappointments, and misdeeds that lead up to the tragedy of Irene’s death. Readers might also guess that orphaned Jean’s past is more intertwined with the Callenders than she knows, which is why Daniel Thiel asked for her to come and work with the Callender papers and why Aunt Constance allowed her to take the job. Both Aunt Constance and Daniel Thiel know more about Jean’s past than she does and the answers to questions that Jean hasn’t even thought to ask yet.

Much of the mystery is also a character study. Jean is correct that she’s unaccustomed to thinking of people in terms of good and evil. In Aunt Constance’s school, she realizes that she was surrounded by basically good people, and the worst that she ever had to complain about there was that some teachers were a little more strict than they needed to be and some of the other girls had petty quarrels with each other. In this small town and within the Callender family, Jean has to confront some of the harsh realities of life, the dark sides of human nature, people who have committed truly wicked deeds, people who have genuinely suffered wrongs, and how misdeeds of the past can haunt the present.

As Jean struggles to understand the members of the Callender family and their motivations, she finds herself questioning where the lines between “good” and “evil” are drawn. For various reasons, she finds herself being sympathetic toward people who have done wrong things. For example, she can readily understand why the housekeeper was driven to steal because of her desperation to help her sick brother, but at the same time, she knows that stealing isn’t right and that her decision ultimately put her in an even worse position.

Jean finds Enoch Callender both disquieting and fascinating at the same time. While she thinks that he should have been more forgiving to the housekeeper, she also comes to understand that much of his behavior comes from frustration and old quarrels with his own father, who put him in the position of living in a place and lifestyle that ultimately doesn’t suit him. He has lived a varied life and knows more about high society and low society than Jean has ever experienced. The stories he tells opens up the world to Jean, which is part of why she finds him so compelling. When it comes to concepts of right and wrong, Enoch has knowledge of the dark undersides of society, and in spite of his prosecution of the housekeeper, he says that he finds the desperate deeds of the lower parts of society far more compelling than the unethical but legal dealings of the upper classes. He is a thrill seeker, and he is fascinated by people willing to risk everything for what they want.

Jean finds a letter that Irene wrote to her father about her brother and their inheritance. Their father found Enoch’s ethics and way of living objectionable, and Irene argued with him that Enoch should still receive most of the estate because she felt that they were responsible for spoiling him as a child and, as an adult, she thinks that he needs more money than she does, whether for good or bad. Enoch is undeniably charming, which makes people, including Jean and his late sister Irene, inclined to make excuses for him rather than holding him to account. However, does his charm really excuse some of the things he’s done or just give him license to do worse? How much responsibility did his father and sister have for the man he has become, or was that always Enoch’s responsibility?

Jean discusses issues of right and wrong and good and evil with Daniel Thiel, and they debate about the various points that may make one person’s actions less wrong or more forgivable than others. Daniel Thiel holds more blame for Enoch than for his housekeeper because, while the housekeeper did something she shouldn’t, she faced up to what she did and took the consequences for it, even though they were harsher than she really deserved. Enoch is not in such a desperate situation and has been keeping his past misdeeds secret and doing nothing to atone for them. Jean’s discussions with Daniel Thiel also open her eyes to other aspects of the world, philosophy, charity, and human suffering. However, while Enoch’s discussions often leave her feeling more witty and sophisticated and taking herself and her own thoughts less seriously, Daniel Thiel’s discussions make her feel respected and help her solidify her own views and arguments.

This is a good book for starting a philosophical debate about the different degrees of wrong-doing that exist and how an individual’s circumstances, character/personality, and sense of accountability can play a part in how much leniency they are or should be allowed. Showing sympathy for one person may be warranted and more humane than thoughtlessly administering the harshest punishment, but on the other hand, too much leniency emboldens a wrong-doer with a different nature, especially a person who lacks sympathy and empathy himself. Daniel Thiel’s point of view is that there should be limits on what someone is willing to excuse. If we, as humans, automatically forgive any and every person who does wrong because they’re just too likable or have somehow suffered a misfortune or disappointment in life, we would never be able to hold anyone to account for anything, no matter how many innocent people that person hurts. Sympathy for one person shouldn’t grant them the license to continue harming or abusing other people.

The difficulty for Jean at first is that she has little information about who in this situation has actually done what. She is only just beginning to learn about the Callenders and the other people in this community, and she has to uncover the truth of what happened in the past, piece by piece. Even then, she finds herself questioning the truthfulness of her sources of information. Whose accounts of the past are more trustworthy, Daniel Thiel’s or Enoch Callender’s? Can she really believe either of them when one or both may have had something to do with the death of Irene and the disappearance of her child? The secret is in the terms of the Callender will and depends on whether or not the child is still alive.

Posted on by TracyC

The Haunted Clock Tower Mystery

Boxcar Children

#84 The Haunted Clock Tower Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner, 2001.

Grandfather Alden is attending a reunion at his old college, Goldwin University, and he brings his grandchildren with him so he can show them where he went to school. The children are fascinated with the beautiful campus, especially with its clock tower. Their grandfather and Ezra Stewart, who works at the college and is responsible for maintaining the clock tower and playing its carillon bells. Ezra demonstrates to the Aldens how the carillon bells work, and he also shows them the smaller training keyboard, where he has trained his assistants. Ezra plays concerts for the campus on the carillon bells, but he gets irritated with his new assistant, Andrea Barton, because she never puts his music back where it belongs.

The Aldens run into Grandfather Alden’s old college roommate, Joel Dixon, who is also there for the reunion. Joel brought his son Don with him because Don has business in the area, and he’s been interested in the college since he started reading a book about it. At dinner, they also meet Grandfather Alden’s old history professor, Julia Meyer, who says that she’s working on a special project, but is mysterious about it.

That night, Benny sees a light in the clock tower. Ezra insists that nobody goes into the clock tower at night, and Benny wonders if it could be a ghost! Then, someone sabotages the carillon. Was it the mysterious night visitor, and if so, who could it be and why?

When the children look at the book Don has been reading, they learn that there may be a secret hidden treasure on the campus that dates from the Civil War. Is their mysterious “ghost”, looking for it, too? Is Don the one searching for the treasure, or is could it be the history professor or maybe Ezra’s new assistant?

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

I always like treasure hunt stories, and I enjoyed seeing the Aldens figuring out the clues to find the hidden treasure! They know that someone else is looking for the treasure, too, and I thought at least one person was a really obvious suspect. What I like about this book, though, it’s that it’s one of those stories where each of the potential suspects has something to hide. There isn’t just one person who’s been sneaking around the clock tower at night. Different people have been there for different reasons, not all of which have anything to do with the treasure. Part of the mystery involves figuring out who is doing what in the clock tower and why.

The addition of the carillon to the story is a fascinating and unique feature. I’ve seen carillon bells before, but I enjoyed hearing Ezra describe how they use the training keyboard for practice. I think, for most kids in the target audience for this book, this story be their first introduction to the idea of a carillon.

Posted on by TracyC

The Mystery on Stage

The Boxcar Children

#43 The Mystery on Stage by Gertrude Chandler Warner, 1994.

Boxcar Children Mystery on Stage play announcement

Jessie decides that she wants to try out for a part in a local stage play of The Wizard of Oz. She wants to try for the role of Dorothy, but many other girls also want that part. A spoiled rich girl named Melody is sure that she will get the part because she’s had professional training, and her mother is very pushy. Another girl, Sarah, ends up getting the role by giving an excellent, heart-felt performance. However, Jessie gets the role of the Cowardly Lion, and Melody is offered the role of the Scarecrow. Melody is very upset about not getting the role of Dorothy, but she takes the role of the Scarecrow anyway. The other Alden kids also help out with the play in various ways, like building scenery and making costumes.

Boxcar Children Mystery on Stage threatening message

Soon, strange things start happening at the theater. Someone calls the play’s director and threatens that something bad will happen if he directs the play. Then, someone crosses Sarah’s name off a casting list and writes a note saying not to go on with the program. Props are stolen, a costume is destroyed, and lettering on a poster is changed. So many things are going wrong, people are starting to wonder if this play is going to happen after all.

Who could be responsible? Was Melody so upset about not getting the lead that she or her mother have decided to sabotage the whole play? Could the grumpy actor playing the Wizard have a reason to want to shut down the play? What secrets is Sarah hiding? Why does she seem to disappear suddenly at times? Or could more than one person be responsible for what’s happening? And why does the actor playing the Tin Man never want to remove his helmet?

My Reaction

Boxcar Children Mystery on Stage fallen light

I thought the mystery was pretty good, and the author did a good job of making a number of people look guilty. I had the feeling from the beginning that Sarah didn’t have her parents’ permission to be in the play, and that’s why she seems to run off or disappear suddenly, because they wouldn’t approve of what she’s doing. I was partly right, but it’s more complicated than that, and it’s important to the mystery.

I laughed out low at one point when the Aldens were talking about the grumpy and fussy actor who is playing the wizard, saying how he seems good at his part, but “it’s too bad about his personality.” It sounds like a serious slam, and honestly, there are some times when I’ve had similar thoughts about some people. In a way, though, that’s a sort of secondary theme to the story. There are some people involved with the production of the play who are really difficult to work with. They’re very good at what they do, like how Melody has had acting and singing lessons and does well on stage, but at the same time, they’re also disagreeable, self-centered, or pains to work with.

Boxcar Children Mystery on Stage Dorothy holding bouquet

Another theme of the story is the idea that things that seem like a disappointment can work out for the best. Jessie is a little disappointed at first that she didn’t get the role of Dorothy, but she turns out to like being the Cowardly Lion, and she realizes that she’s actually having more fun with that role than she would have with the role of Dorothy. Melody almost refuses to take the part of the Scarecrow because it isn’t the starring role of the play, but she does anyway. She likes it better than she thought she would, although she still wishes that she had a part where she could wear a pretty dress, like Dorothy.

Posted on by TracyC

The Deserted Library Mystery

The Boxcar Children

#21 The Deserted Library Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner, 1991.

Mr. Alden tells his grandchildren that a friend of his in a nearby small town, Pete, is concerned about their local library. The town is really too small to support a library, and when the last librarian left, they weren’t able to replace her. The library has fallen into disrepair and is in danger of being torn down. However, the building is old and has historical significance. It might be preserved as a historical landmark, but it needs some cleaning and organizing. Mr. Alden asks his grandchildren if they would be interested in the project, and they say they would. Pete spends part of the year living at his restaurant in town, so the Aldens can use his house while they’re working on the library project.

When they get to Pete’s house, they have to do a cleaning job there because Pete hasn’t been there in a while, and the place seems a bit spooky to them. The library seems a little spooky to them, too, when they begin looking around, but they soon begin finding some significant treasures. The children find a sword hilt from the Civil War along with a letter about the sword being awarded to a soldier by General Lee, but for some reason, the blade of the sword is missing! They children know that, if they can find the sword blade, it would be of great historical significance.

Then, strange things start happening in the library. Food that they bring for lunch disappears, and the kids start feeling like they aren’t along in the building. They search the library and find a 10-year-old boy named Miguel Morales. Miguel explains that his mother is dead and that he heard his father’s fishing boat sank. If his father is dead, he has nowhere to go and is afraid of being put in an orphanage or children’s home. The Boxcar Children sympathize with Miguel because they were once in a similar position, but they also tell Miguel that the situation might not be as bad as he thinks. They don’t know for certain whether Miguel’s father is dead or not. He can’t hide in the library forever, so they invite Miguel to stay with them and help with the library project while they check and see for certain what really happened to Miguel’s father. Henry contacts his grandfather to ask for his help and to see if he can learn anything about Miguel’s father. Mr. Alden agrees to help Miguel and is thrilled to hear about the Civil War sword.

Finding Miguel seems to clear up the mystery of who has been in the library, but the children soon begin to realize that there is a second intruder. The kids find a gray work glove in the library that doesn’t belong to any of them, and Jessie hears someone humming when no one is supposed to be there. Then, someone tries to trap them in Pete’s house by putting a big branch in front of the door, and when they get out and return to the library, they find the place trashed! Someone has thrown all the books around and torn them and turned the furniture over. Later, someone sneaks into Pete’s house at night, while the children are there but asleep, to search the place. Henry is pretty sure that the mysterious intruder is searching for the Civil War sword, the most valuable thing they’ve found so far.

My Reaction

I like the location and set-up of the story. An abandoned library makes a nice, spooky place to have mysterious things happening and people lurking around. Although this book was written by a ghost writer after Gertrude Chandler Warner’s death, it has a lot of the flavor of the original books in the series – opportunities for the Alden children to show off their self-sufficiency and community-oriented volunteer work, another child who is on his own and needs some help, and a mystery that is more adventure in some ways than mystery.

I liked the idea that the kids think they’ve solved the mystery of who’s been lurking around the library when they find Miguel, only to realize that there’s someone else snooping around. It was a little disappointing that we seem to know what the mysterious lurker is looking immediately for because there’s only valuable item associated with the library, and there’s no twist to it. We also don’t really get to to know the culprit as a character outside of his lurking. This isn’t the case that there are multiple people to suspect. By the time we learn the culprit’s identity, we already know him as the culprit. I would have preferred more mystery with a choice of known suspects, but something that does complicate the mystery is also that the antique sword is broken, so the kids have to find the other part of it.

The side plot with the question of whether or not Miguel’s father is alive adds some suspense. Although the Boxcar Children are optimistic that Miguel’s father survived his boat sinking, and Mr. Alden says that he will take care of Miguel, Miguel privately thinks to himself that, if it turns out that his father isn’t among the survivors, he will run away again. Readers are left in suspense because we are told that there were survivors from the boat, but we aren’t told whether Miguel’s father is one of them until the end.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Schoolhouse Mystery

The Boxcar Children

#10 Schoolhouse Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner, 1965.

It’s June, and the Aldens are trying to decide what to do for the summer. Benny says that his friend Max remarked that the Aldens always seem to find something exciting everywhere they go, but Max doesn’t think anybody could find anything exciting about the little village where his father likes to go fishing. Max says that it’s a tiny and isolated village on an island with little to do, and he doubts even the Aldens would find anything interesting or exciting there. The only people who usually go there are summer visitors going fishing, like Max’s dad. Mr. Alden has been thinking over other plans for the summer, but he says that, if the children want to take a short visit to his village, called Port Elizabeth, to test out Max’s theory of how boring the place is and see if they can find something exciting about the place, it’s fine with him. The Aldens think that purposely visiting a dull town and seeing what they can find there sounds interesting by itself, so they decide to go.

When they arrive, they find that the place is as small as Max described. It doesn’t take them long to explore the town. There is a small store, but it’s well-stocked with all the food they need. There’s a big old house that seems to be abandoned, and there’s a quaint little schoolhouse with a bell and an odd-shaped chimney.

The people of the town seem suspicious of them at first. They don’t get many outsiders coming to their town, and they can tell immediately that the Aldens are rich because of their car and their clothes. However, because the Aldens are friendly and polite visitors, people gradually begin warming up to them.

The Aldens learn that most people in town work for the local sardine factory. There aren’t many other job prospects in the area, and they don’t have access to higher education or even outside sources of information, like television, so the local kids don’t aspire to much more. Local kids work, too.

One day, a pair of twins approach Violent while she’s painting a picture and start talking to her about painting. They’ve never really owned any proper art supplies themselves, only some crayons, but they’ve been interested in learning to paint since a professional artist came to town to paint the seaside. They also tell Violet and her siblings that the town has had trouble keeping teachers. Most people don’t want to stay in the town very long because it’s so small, and there’s so little to do. Because they change teachers so often, the kids never really advance much in their classes. Every teacher basically keeps starting over in their lessons. The last one told them to study this summer to make progress and prevent themselves from forgetting what they’ve learned, but the local kids don’t really know how to study or what to study, and they’ve never had a teacher who taught any of the really fun subjects, like art.

The local kids ask the Aldens if they could help them study this summer, and the Aldens get the idea to set up their own summer school in the local schoolhouse. They speak to the lady who owns the schoolhouse, Miss Gray, and she gives her permission. The Aldens recognize her as a famous author, but now, she lives like she’s a recluse in her big, old house. She also asks the Aldens whether or not they know a blond man who smiles a lot, but the Aldens don’t know who she’s talking about.

The people in town don’t have much money, and they save what they can in cash rather than using a bank. However, something odd has happened recently because a man has bought a couple of coins from some of the locals for more than the face value of the coins. The locals don’t know why he was willing to do this, but they’re always grateful for anything extra they can get. The locals have started calling this blond man “the money man” because he not only buys coins but also various other odd, old things that most of the locals think of as junk. They don’t know why he wants these things, but they’re just glad he’s willing to pay something fro them. Mr. Alden is very interested in this man and wants to know more about him.

The Alden kids buy some art supplies and school supplies so they can get started with lessons for their summer school. Even though they provide some supplies and have some textbooks in the schoolhouse, they find that there are things they need because previous teachers in town haven’t left some of the things they need, like easy reading books. They improvise as best they can, with Benny helping the kids in class write simple stories about themselves and their lives to use for reading lessons. The local children talk more about the “money man” and how he trades them new toys for old ones they’ve had. The children think that’s great, but the Aldens are suspicious about the “money man’s” apparent generosity.

It isn’t long before Mr. Alden and the children have an encounter with the blond “money man.” The man, called Freddie, notices that Mr. Alden has a rare penny on his watch chain and offers to buy it. He explains that he deals in coins and antiques. Mr. Alden can tell that Freddie is knowledgeable but slick when it comes to buying collectible items. Mr. Alden refuses to sell the man his coin or his watch, and after he leaves, the children tell their grandfather what they know about his dealings with the local people.

It has become apparent that Freddie is cheating the locals, buying antiques and collectibles from them while either paying them much less than what they’re really worth or trading them for newer but cheaper items. Because this town is relatively isolated and the people don’t have much money, they’ve spent generations keeping and reusing antique items without knowing how valuable they’ve become. The local children are thrilled when he lives them newer and more colorful toys in exchange for their old ones, because they don’t know how much their antique toys are worth. Technically, Freddie hasn’t done anything illegal because the people he’s been buying from and trading with have agreed to the deals so far and been satisfied with what they’ve gotten, but that’s only because they don’t know that they could have gotten much better deals from someone else. Freddie’s dealings aren’t really fair or ethical, and Mr. Alden and the local author have become concerned that he may take even bigger advantages of the local people than he already has.

When some valuable collectors’ books disappear from the little village’s neglected library, the author, Miss Gray is convinced that Freddie is responsible. How can they catch him and prove to everyone what he’s been doing?

My Reaction

As with many of the earlier Boxcar Children books, there is an element of mystery but more emphasis on the adventure and the kids’ summer experiences than on the mystery. We have an obviously suspicious right at the beginning, and we have a sense of what he’s doing that’s a problem pretty quickly. This is one of those mysteries where the protagonists have an obvious villain and a good understanding of what’s going on, but the mystery is about getting the evidence and proving it. Part of the issue at first is that duping people into trading things with him or selling them to him for less than what they’re really worth is more unethical than illegal because, as long as the participants are satisfied with the trade and willingly agree to it, it’s difficult to prove that they were deceived. It’s when the villain crosses the lines and actually steals something nobody agreed to give him or sell him that they can really start to nail him for what he’s been doing.

Part of the solution felt a little contrived because it turns out that the villain has been hiding his ill-gotten gains in a location that is right under the children’s noses, and there is something special about the place that allows them to watch the villain without being observed. It’s an interesting set-up, but I usually prefer a more traditional style mystery where there’s more for the amateur detectives to figure out.

Posted on by TracyC

Meg Mackintosh and The Mystery in the Locked Library

Meg Mackintosh Mysteries

Meg Mackintosh and The Mystery in the Locked Library by Lucinda Landon, 1993.

Meg, her brother Peter, and their grandfather are visiting their grandfather’s cousin, Alice, who was introduced in the first book of the series as the one who created the treasure hunt to find his missing Babe Ruth baseball when they were young. Grown up Alice is now a librarian, and she has created another treasure hunt for them.

One morning, she leaves them a note saying that she has a dentist appointment, but she wants them to go to the library and find something valuable that she’s hidden there before the library opens at noon. Readers follow along with the clues that Alice has left for them to solve and the pictures in the book, seeing if they can solve each part of the mystery along with Meg. In keeping with the library and book theme of the story, the clues are based around books, particularly Sherlock Holmes books.

When Meg and her family arrive at the library and begin following the clues, they discover that there are other people in the library, even though the library isn’t officially open yet. Caroline is the assistant librarian, and Gerry also works there. Then, a man named Horace Plotnik shows up, saying that he’s an antiques expert and that Alice asked him to come to appraise something.

They discover that Alice didn’t make it to her dentist appointment because someone locked her in the library’s book repair room. It turns out that the valuable item that Alice hid was a first edition of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that recently came to the library in a donation of books, but when Meg and Peter finish the treasure hunt and go to the place where Alice did the book, it’s gone! Was it stolen by the person who locked Alice in the book repair room, and if so, who was it?

The Book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction

I always enjoy treasure hunt stories, and like other Meg Mackintosh mysteries, this story gives readers the opportunity to figure out the clues and puzzles along with Meg. The information readers need is in the pictures of the story. When I was a kid, I particularly liked puzzles based around solving a secret code, and there is a secret code puzzle in this book that readers can solve themselves.

This treasure hunt is fun because it’s based around library and book themes, particularly focusing on Sherlock Holmes. The idea of hunting for a lost copy of a first edition Sherlock Holmes book was timely for when the book was originally written because, as the story indicates at the end, the book was written around the 100th anniversary of the character of Sherlock Holmes!

Posted on by TracyC

Meg Mackintosh and The Mystery at the Soccer Match

Meg Mackintosh Mysteries

Meg Mackintosh and The Mystery at the Soccer Match by Lucinda Landon, 1997.

Meg and her brother Peter play on opposing soccer teams, the Hawks and the Panthers. Peter is brags about how good he is at being a goalie, and Meg hopes that, in this game, she can score a few points off him. There are prizes for this soccer team, and the winning team will get to keep a medal that Coach Lee won playing international soccer until next year’s game. Everybody admires the medal, which is displayed on the awards table.

Meg’s teammate, Alex, is less thrilled about the game. He has an injured leg and can’t play, and his mother is busy campaigning against awarding prizes for children’s soccer. She thinks that giving prizes isn’t fair and hurts the feelings of kids who don’t get prizes.

It’s true that there is some pressure from the parents for their children to play harder to win prizes than the kids really want. Peter accidentally collides with one of his teammates, Heather, and they both end up with scrapes and are temporarily removed from the game for first aid. Heather’s father pressures her to get back in the game as soon as possible and win, but Heather privately admits to Peter that she doesn’t really feel like playing anymore. She only does it because she knows her dad would feel bad if her team doesn’t win.

It starts to rain during the game, and the adults and kids cover the awards table with a blanket. When they remove the blanket later, the gold medal is gone! Who could have taken it? Meg invites Alex to join her detective club and help investigate the mystery while she plays soccer!

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

Meg inviting Alex to help her investigate the case and consider motives makes this book a little different from other books in the series, where Meg usually does that herself. The mystery is good because there are several suspects to consider, each of whom was seen near the table and left signs of their presence there. Did Heather’s dad take the medal because he once almost won a similar soccer medal and was jealous that Coach Lee won the prize he didn’t? He certainly seems very prize-oriented. Did Alex’s mother take it because she disapproves of sports prizes and wanted to make a statement about it? Could one of the children have taken it, either because they wanted to claim the prize they didn’t think they could win honestly or because they wanted to impress one of their parents?

As with other books in the series, readers are given the chance to review the evidence Meg and her friends have collected and see if they can spot the clues along with them in pictures taken at the scene. There was a clue that I thought was pretty obvious in one of the pictures but which Meg and the other kids didn’t spot at first. They only notice it when another clue makes them take a second look at one of the pictures. I think many young readers might also spot the clue I did, although if they do, it might make them feel clever for noticing something before Meg and her friends do.

When I first noticed that clue, I was inclined to think the solution to this mystery was too obvious, but there is another twist to the story that makes it more interesting. The medal was actually stolen twice. After the original thief put it back, someone else took it again, so there are two thefts to figure out instead of one.

Posted on by TracyC

The Mystery of Castle Croome

The Mystery of Castle Croome by Hilda Boden, 1966.

Molly Stewart, an American college student attending Oxford, is an orphan who is barely scraping by when she suddenly receives word that she has inherited an ancient castle in Scotland from her great-uncle, who has recently died. Molly’s friends, a pair of twins called Pat and Penny Roderick (short for Patricia and Penelope), go with her to have a look at the place, but right from the beginning, it seems like nobody wants her there.

Although the lawyer, Mr. Harding, is aware that Molly has been attending Oxford, he also knows that she is planning to return to the United States when she finishes her degree. He also knows that her great-uncle, Sir Malcolm, disapproved when her father married an American and moved to the United States himself, so he was surprised when Sir Malcolm’s will left his estate to his nephew or his nephew’s heirs. Mr. Harding had expected that Sir Malcolm would leave the estate to Jamie Campbell instead because Jamie has been the caretaker for years. The estate doesn’t come with much of an income, and the farms attached to it don’t have tenants, so they’re not bringing in rent money. It would take a lot of work to restore the estate. Since Mr. Harding would rather deal with Jamie Campbell anyway, he thinks that Molly would find it a better deal to just sell the castle to Jamie and use the money to finish her degree and go back to the United States. Molly asks why Jamie Campbell would want to buy the castle if it’s not worth much and needs so much work to restore. Mr. Harding says he might buy it out of sentiment, but Molly wants to have a look at the castle before agreeing to sell it. After seeing it, she might decide that it isn’t the kind of place where she could live, but she won’t know for sure until she sees it herself. Mr. Harding agrees and says that he will tell Jamie Campbell that she’s coming.

When Molly arrives with Pat and Penny, they see that the castle is isolated and rather eerie. Inside, it is run down, and living conditions are primitive. Jamie Campbell, an elderly man, isn’t happy that they’re there. There is no other staff, and while Jamie was happy to serve the old laird and nurse him through his final years, he has no intention of serving this young American grand-niece. Although there is an electrical generator at the castle, Jamie says that it hasn’t worked in years, and he and the old laird used oil lamps and candles. If Molly and her friends think he’s going to go to special efforts for their comfort, they can think again. Molly refuses to be intimidated by his disrespect, and she tells him that, because this castle has been his home for years, he is welcome to continue staying there, although Jamie Campbell thinks that she’s only extending that invitation to get a free caretaker.

Molly is studying engineering at college, and her friends think that she could probably fix the generator, but Molly tells them that she would like to wait to look at it. She hasn’t had much practical experience yet, so she wants to take time to study the situation before she does anything. She also tells her friends not to mention to Jamie Campbell that she has any engineering knowledge. She doesn’t trust Jamie, and she thinks it might be better for him to think that they’re more helpless than they actually are.

Molly sees definite signs that Jamie Campbell hasn’t been honest with them about the real condition of the castle and about even the contents of the castle at the time that her uncle died, and she can tell that he’s deliberately trying to make life harder for them to drive them away from the castle. After Jamie Campbell tells them that there is no running water at the castle, the girls notice that soap next to a sink is still wet, indicating that Jamie has very recently washed his hands there. The girls think that he probably shut off the water right before they got there, and they also think there is probably nothing wrong with the generator, that Jamie probably just turned it off. He tries to keep them from even looking at it, and he’s reluctant to hand over the keys to the castle to Molly. Many pictures are missing from the walls of the castle, and Jamie says Molly’s uncle sold them for money, but another painting disappears during their stay, showing the girls that Jamie is the one looting artwork from the castle. Molly realizes that nobody seems to know exactly what was in the castle at the time her uncle died, making it difficult to prove that Jamie is stealing things. When Molly tries to search her uncle’s desk, she finds that it’s been completely cleared of even routine papers, and Jamie admits in a cagey way that he may have tidied up a little.

Things improve for Molly and her friends when they set out to buy some food and make contact with other people outside the castle. Jamie refuses to even feed them, saying that he barely has enough for himself. He says that he might have been able to provide something for Molly if she was alone, but he can’t be expected to feed her friends, too. Fortunately, the girls have some provisions with them that get them through their first night at the castle. When they set out in the morning to buy more food, they can’t take their care because there’s a large nail in one of the tires. They can’t prove that Jamie sabotaged the car, but they all suspect he did. They decide to set out on foot to find somewhere with a telephone or somewhere they can buy some food. They meet up with a scout troop camping nearby, and they save the girls from stumbling into a bog. They share a meal with the girls, and the girls tell them what’s been happening at the castle.

The scout leaders don’t like the sound of Jamie and the things happening at the castle, and they tell the girls that they will send a mobile shop to the castle to sell them food. There’s a van that travels among the farms in the area, selling groceries, sort of like a food truck, and it carries a surprising variety of goods. The scouts also tell the girls how they forage for wild foods, and they offer their services for changing the car’s tire and other things they might need.

That night, Molly has a frightening encounter with a ghostly white figure, although she believes that it’s just Jamie, trying to frighten her away from the castle. The next day, Molly and her friends confront Jamie about the missing painting, and he tells Molly that her great-uncle sold that painting years ago. He tries to convince her that the only reason why she thought she saw it is that she has “second sight.” He says that it was a favorite painting of her great-uncle’s and that she only saw it because she’s a member of his family and has psychically sensed the memory of the picture. Molly knows that can’t be true because her friends also saw the picture. Molly also asks Jamie about a strange roaring noise that she heard at night that sounded like machinery of some kind, and Jamie tells her that it’s the “Roar of the Stewarts.” He says it’s a bad omen, and that Stewarts hear it before something bad happens. Although none of the girls admits to having seen a “ghost” the night before, Jamie also tells them about the “Specter of the Castle”, and he insists that all of these bad omens are signs that Molly and her friends should leave the castle because it’s dangerous for them.

Molly and her friends know that Jamie badly wants to frighten them away from the castle, and part of that might be that he’s been looting objects from it since Molly’s great-uncle died, but what is the real cause of the machine noises in the night? Then, suddenly, Jamie welcomes a pair of unexpected guests into the castle as paying guests. Mr. and Mrs. Smith claim that they’re traveling tourists who think it would be exciting to stay in a real castle. Molly tries to discourage them from staying by charging them more than anyone might expect from staying in a run-down castle with primitive living conditions, but the Smiths insist that they would enjoy an authentic experience. Molly and her friends are immediately suspicious, especially when they realize that the Smiths don’t seem to have a car, and there’s no obvious way they could have even reached this out-of-the-way castle. Who are they really? Are they confederates of Jamie’s? What has Jamie really been doing at the castle, and what is he so afraid that Molly and her friends will discover if they stay?

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction

I found this book recently at a used book sale, but I recognized the title because I tried to find this book when I was a kid. I wanted it because it was on a list of suggested books in the back of another mystery book I read and liked as a kid. Actually, I think I enjoyed it more as an adult than I would have has as a kid. As a kid, I would have liked the notion of a girl inheriting a spooky old castle that might be haunted, but in this story, it’s pretty obvious right away that Jamie is behind all the mysterious things happening.

This story is not like other mysteries where you have to wonder who among the suspects could be responsible for the mysterious happenings because Jamie is the only suspect from the beginning. The real mystery, for both the characters and the readers is why he’s doing it. It’s a “whydunnit” more than a “whodunnit.” Although it would have been fun and atmospheric if Molly and her friends believed that the castle was haunted and were scared, I have to admit that I loved how unimpressed the girls were when Jamie awkwardly makes up his spooky stories and excuses about “second sight”, the “Roar of the Stewarts”, and the “Specter of the Castle.” They know that he’s just making it all up. They just don’t kick him out of the castle immediately because he’s an old man who’s been there for years, and they also want to know that he’s up to.

It turns out that part of what he’s up to is obvious and part actually resembles the mystery book that had this listed as a recommended book. Readers can figure out the more obvious part themselves, but there’s a revelation later that Jamie is also involved in another crime that he can’t explain away as any misunderstanding. There’s a suspenseful part of the story where the girls are trapped in the castle with Jamie and his confederates and need to figure out how to escape or summon help. I thought that the ending part wrapped up a little quickly, but overall, I liked the story. I think I enjoyed the book more now than I would have if I’d found it when I was a kid.