The Hidden Staircase

Welcome back to Do The Drew! As you can see, again, for the original story, I am using a tweed version of a book, and again, it's because this is the copy that I physically own.  If I find better copies of these two books, I will replace them within the blog.  Now as you may have noticed, I've added the names of the people who worked on the revised stories, though they lack information.  That's because at this time, I've been unable to track down any trace of them and if this ever changes, the past entries will be updated.

  Just as a reminder, all pics are from the internet and represent (to the best of my abilities) the state of my own copies of the books I own, though to be fair, the original version of The Secret In The Old Attic belongs to my best friend who graciously allowed me to borrow the book for the blog.

Now that that's out of the way, The Hidden Staircase was originally written in 1930 by Mildred Wirt Benson and according to Wikipedia---which, as always, take with a grain of salt---this was her personal favorite.

Characters: Nancy Drew, Carson Drew, Floretta and Rosemary Turnbull (with cameos from characters from The Secret Of The Old Clock)

Premise: Nancy investigates mysterious going-ons at the home of Floretta and Rosemary Turnbull.

At the behest of a woman she had helped previously---Allie Horner---Nancy takes the case of Floretta and Rosemary Turnbull, twin sisters, who are thinking of selling their home, Turnball Mansion (also known simply as the Mansion) due to many frightening incidents such as belongings going missing, and hearing ghostly footsteps down the halls.  Along with this, they are being pressured to sell by their neighbor Nathan Gombet and Nancy starts to suspect that the man has something to do with the occurrences, which, I mean, at the beginning, almost seems like a leap, cause if I heard that someone was selling their house because it seemed to be haunted and that someone was wanting to buy it, I don't know if I would've immediately jumped to 'Hey, this guy I've never even heard of is behind all these shenanigans!'  Of course, Nancy's suspicions are heightened when Allie reveals Nathan had previously tried to steal food from her the last time he came to buy from her, so I guess that correlation would make me consider the dude as a viable suspect.

At the same time this is going on, Gombet's forced his way into the Drew home and threatened Carson Drew, claiming that he and the railroad company---to whom he had sold his land---had cheated him.  Nancy doesn't believe this of course and throws him out.  However, unknown to Nancy, later on, while she's busy working on the Turnbull mystery, Gombet gets his revenge by kidnapping Carson by approaching him and claiming that Nancy's been injured and is at his house as she can't be moved to be taken to a hospital, which, Carson, Sir!  You don't even like this guy!  Even if your fatherly concern is at an all-time high, why would you trust anything that comes out of this dude's mouth?  Once Carson's in his power, Gombet tries to torture him---mostly through starvation---into giving him a very large amount of money, which I have to admit, you don't usually see stuff like that in a Nancy Drew book, so it was interesting to read.

Nancy is at first discouraged in her investigation because she can't seem to find any clues, and things keep happening right under her nose, such as Floretta's diamond bar pin, some spoons, and a silver urn going missing, and the ladies even have to contend with a pair of canaries being set loose in the house and when she urges the police to go after Gombet, they tell her that they can't do anything without hard evidence, and she gets frustrated with them, which, Nancy!  Ma'am!  They are absolutely right!  Evidence is what gets convictions, even in the thirties! 

As stated, Nancy is frustrated by her lack of progress, but then stumbles onto the secret entryway---she literally fell down the stairs, which ouch!---and from there, she finds that the passageway leads to Gombet's house next door where she finds herself stuck as she tries to get out due to the fact that Gombet's housekeeper---who is described as being "colored", referred to as "negress" and speaks in a dialect (which are of course are not appropriate in this day and age but was the accepted wording back then)---is on guard inside the house.  However, Nancy finally manages to escape and then shows the Turnbulls what she's found, gets the police, who after some persuasion, go after Gombet find Carson hidden in a room, and arrest Nathan and his housekeeper. 

The 1959 revision by Harriet Stratemeyer Adams---my personal copy of this volumes gives 1987 as the last date of publication and I have no idea if there, were any other revisions after '59---is largely the same with some key differences: Rosemary and Floretta (whose name was changed to Miss Flora) are now mother and daughter, being relatives to Nancy's friend, Helen Corning who announces that she's engaged to a man named Jim Archer, The Turnbulls were renamed Hayes, Turnbull House is now Twin Elms, which, I guess is okay, but honestly, Twin Elms to me just doesn't really have the same ring to it.

Other differences are: expansion of the railroad dispute (which was mentioned in the original once), new characters are introduced such as Willie Wharton and crinkly-eared Samuel Greenman.  In this newer version, Nathan Gombet (renamed Gomber, not that that's any better of a name, geez Louise), convinces other investors that they can get more money from the railroad, different items are stolen (diamond bar pin in the original, a pearl necklace in the updated story), readers stay with Nancy's narrative which means that they don't get to see what happens to Carson when he's kidnapped, we just have the same information Nancy gets, the story behind the two houses is slightly different with the feud being between the original owners due to one being a Union sympathizer with the other joining the Confederacy in the original story, while in the updated tale, it's their sons that feud, though the nature of the altercation isn't listed, and even the birds let loose in the house are different (changing from canaries to an owl, which, where the heck did this guy get an owl from?  In the original text, the canaries were his pets, which at least makes sense).

Both versions have their pros and cons.  Nancy tackles the mystery on her in the original 1930s text (though Rosemary and Floretta are spunky enough to join her on some of the hunts around the house) and to me, it was a little weird having Nancy by herself as she doesn't really have anyone to bounce ideas off, so much like in The Ghost Of Blackwood Hall, you get to see a lot of Nancy's introspection, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but this does cause the story to lag a bit as there's not a lot of characters.

I do like that they expanded and explored the idea of the railroad dispute in the 1959 volume and having Gombet/Gomber drug Carson makes more sense than the whole shuck and jive that he sold him in the original tale.  Though I like the addition of Helen Corning as she was one of my favorite secondary characters in the stories, I wasn't fond of the changed dynamics of Rosemary and Floretta/Miss Flora.  But hey, writers can't please everyone and just because I don't like the changes, doesn't mean somebody else didn't.  So to that end, be like Nancy: Stubborn, determined, and a little sassy. Do the Drew.