The Mystery Of The Ivory Charm

 

This is another story penned by Mildred Wirt Benson in 1936 and is the 13th caper for Nancy and her friends.  Again, keep in mind that views on different cultures---especially in the thirties---are extremely outdated and don't jive with attitudes today.   

Characters: Nancy Drew, George Fayne, and Bess Marvin (with guest appearances by Hanah Gruen, Carson Drew and Ned Nickerson)

Premise: Nancy helps a young boy---Coya----get away from his abusive father even as she investigates property being sold.

Nancy, Bess, and George visit a traveling circus where Nancy gets involved with things when she notices the elephant trainer Rai whipping his son Coya (what a name, right?), and goes to help Coya, (which, hopefully, I would too, but I don't know because I've never been put in that situation), and she vows to get the boy away from his father, and Coya runs away to the Drew home where gives Nancy an ivory elephant charm he stole from Rai and he vows to earn his keep by keeping up his studies and doing chores, which they agree to.

Nancy also tries to help a woman named Anita Allison who's refusing to sell her property and is very into mysticism.  Like, the story really harps on it: the woman is into it: trances, spells...stuff like that.  Then, her house burns down and it turns out that she has like a boatload of jewels hidden in secret tunnels beneath the house which she makes Nancy, Carson, and Ned retrieve, which, even if there's tunnels, wouldn't the fire melt the boxes holding the jewels?  Maybe the boxes were made of sturdier stuff in thirties? I don't know.

In the course of her investigation, Nancy learns about different aspects of Indian culture such as hiding elixirs and antidotes inside charms from a professor who agrees to tutor Coya, being amazed at his intellect, and Nancy soon suspects that because of his polished and studious manners, Coya is actually a missing Rajah (ruler of India) who had been kidnapped at birth, something that seems to be confirmed by Coya's tutor, and her conversation with a new classmate of Ned's named Basha, so that a man Iama Togora, can rule in his stead and soon finds documents to prove this.  I mean, this is all interesting and stuff, but how did she make the leap?  It literally came out of nowhere.

As it turns out, Anita Allison helped Rai kidnap Coya and place a dude named Iama Togara on the throne, for....reasons, I guess? Benson didn't say and this wasn't explained well.  They didn't explain why Rai wanted this guy as a leader either, imagination is required here. But, this results in the American police being called and even the British police are called in, which, one would think the Indian government/authorities would be notified, but maybe they were corrupt? 🤷‍♀️

Rai than kidnaps Coya as well as Nancy, and George who went looking for Coya, and nearly succeeds, but Nancy remembers a prior conversation with the professor, removes one of the elephant's tusks, finds the antidote to the poison Rai gives Coya, gives it to Coya, and Allison, Rai, and their cohorts are arrested and Coya finds out that he's the ruler of India.

Revised in 1974 by Priscilla aker-Carr the story is largely the same except Coya's name is changed to Rishi, his father is alive, Basha's name is changed to Anil, and Chief McGinnis has a cameo role.  To be fair, Carr does try to change it up by having the circus owner introduce the mystery by asking Nancy to look into Rai for some illegal practices, however, he doesn't say what he was suspected of.  Did he think he was embezzling?  Did he place someone under a spell?  What?  Readers do need to know these things. But again, despite these changes, there's not really much to compare/contrast.

When it comes to the Indian culture, Hannah's attitude towards Rishi is better than how she treated Coya in the original version, and the story reads slightly better in that it states that the major superstitious practices were done in the past rather than "present" of the current time period.

Another way the story was changed is that Rishi knows that Rai isn't his father because one of his stepmothers tells him and states that he can prove it by saying the word "Manohar" to his father, which apparently was their financial guy, which...how is knowing that supposed to help?  Also, did Anita get charged with arson?  Again, readers need to know.  And again, not much explanation for Anita and Rai's actions were given, so that was dissatisfying.

That being said, I found this story to be entertaining, but admittedly, not one of the best mysteries or one of my favorites as I found it to be a bit out there.  Still worth a read there.  Be kind, be nice, do the Drew.