Adults Without a Clue

The Clue of the Dead Duck

Scott Young
Toronto: Little, Brown, 1962
159 pages

Morgan Perdue and Albert "Young Ab" Magee are up to no good. They've taken advantage of a trip taken by Black Ab – he's Young Ab's dad – to skip school and do a little illegal duck hunting. Friend Sally Connors wanted to join them, but the boys had waved her off. Morgan and Young Ab leave well before dawn, piloting a boat down Irishman's River to the very same floating bog Black Ab uses when hunting duck. No sooner do they arrive than they are attacked and Morgan is knocked out.

The boy regains consciousness to find Young Ab and the boat gone. He spends a long cold day on the bog before being rescued by Sally. She'd grown concerned when the boys hadn't returned. Morgan's rescue sets off a futile search for Young Ab. The Ontario Provincial Police are called in, the RCAF sends a helicopter from CFB Trenton, and yet there is no sign of the missing boy. 

There's suspicion from the start. Morgan Perdue is a foster child. He's spent his childhood being shuttled from place to place by Children's Aid. Morgan considers his two years at the Magee house the best he's ever lived, which is something given that the period coincides with Mrs Magee's sudden illness and death. Though no one blames the boy for her passing, Young Ab's Aunt Winnie has always considered Morgan a bad seed. She's certain he's hiding what really happened on Irishman's River:

"Are you sure you and Young Ab didn't didn't have some kind of an argument and then that that [sic] temper of yours didn't get the better of you?"

Detective Sergeant Bower of the OPP has a similar theory. A grim, unfriendly man he isn't so much intent on investigating as obtaining an a confession.

It's this treatment of Morgan, this terrible prejudice, that lends weight to what would otherwise be just another adventure story for children. The boy wants to clear his name, but more than anything he wants to find his friend.

The children of The Clue of the Dead Duck come off so much better than their elders. Sally proves herself a capable, loyal friend. Pearl, Young Ab's little sister comforts Morgan as the adults point fingers. Meanwhile, Morgan somehow manages to find the strength to continue his quest in the face of insinuations and accusations levelled by the adults. His actions, not those of the police, lead to the break in the case and the arrests of the persons responsible for Young Ab's disappearance. 

The Clue of the Dead Duck is the sixth book in Little, Brown's Secret Circle series. A strange name, don't you think? It suggests a group of crime solvers, like the Three Investigators, yet the books have no recurring characters. What they do have in common is Arthur Hammond, who not only served as the series' general editor, but provided plot outlines for each title. The subtle social commentary of The Clue of the Dead Duck sets it apart from Max Braithwaite's The Mystery of the Muffled Man, the only other Secret Circle book I've read. Whether this is the result of Young's influence or that of Hammond, a man known for his social activism, is a matter of further research. Ultimately, credit goes to the author. Sketching out a story is one thing, writing this is quite another: 

The last thing Young Ab said before he went to sleep was that the alarm was set for four o'clock and that we'd better get some sleep.
     But sometimes when I'm just about to go to sleep things seem very clear to me. If I've done something wrong during the day, it's in those few minutes before I go to sleep that I worry about it. Now I started thinking, suppose there's an accident? Suppose somebody gets shot? The faces of all the people I knew around Irishman's Lake, all the people who accepted me right now because I was under Black Ab's protection, came up in my mind. But as I  lay therein the dark, these faces seemed to be looking at me accusingly. Old ladies had their heads bent together and were looking out of the corners of their eyes at me, and I was scared.

Sadly, The Clue of the Dead Duck remains relevant. It hasn't aged.

Note: The Clue of the Dead Duck was read for the 1962 Club. Reviews by fellow club members can be found through this link.

Other books from 1962 reviewed here over the years:

Canada 1962

The Damned and the Destroyed - Kenneth Orvis

Four Days - John Buell

Lust Planet - Olin Ross [W.E.D. Ross]

The Mystery of the Muffled Man - Max Braithwaite

The Ravine - Kendal Young [Phyllis Brett Young]

Object: A well-constructed hardcover with series design. The eight illustrations, cover included, are by Douglas Johnson. I purchased my copy last year at Craigy Muir Curiousities in Spencerville, Ontario. Price: $5.00.

 

Access: Very few copies are listed for sale online – prices range from US$6.00 to US$13.96. Note that not one features the dust jacket.

In 1981, The Clue of the Dead Duck was reissued as a Seal mass market paperback. As far as I've been able to determine, it was a split run with Scholastic Canada. These editions are being sold by pretend booksellers like Thriftbooks at prices ranging from US$30.42 to $42.48.

Related posts:

Yeah, I Know the Muffled Man

Christmas With Neil Young's Dad

Teamwork

Hidden Thanksgiving Day Verse

Lines for the day from Canada and Other Poems, Thomas Frederick Young's lone volume of verse. Published in 1887 by Hunter, Rose, the table of contents is interesting in that the page numbers are off. What makes it truly curious is that there's no mention of 'Thanksgiving Day,' one of the stronger poems in the collection. 

THANKSGIVING DAY

                     God of the harvest, once again

                         Our joyful tones we raise,

                    For all Thy goodness, day by day,

                         We give Thee thankful praise.

                    With blessings rich, from fertile field,

                         And gifts from fruitful tree,

                    We wish, this day, our thanks to yield

                         With earnest hearts, to Thee.

                    We ploughed the ground, we sow'd the seed,

                         But Thou didst send the rain

                    In grateful show'rs, in time of need.

                         And now we've reap'd the grain.

                    The sun with grateful heat did shine;

                         The dew did nightly fall;

                    And now, for loaded tree and vine —

                         We give Thee thanks for all.

                    The bee, in well-fill'd honey cells.

                         Her sweets for us hath stow'd,

                    The crystal water in the wells,

                         For us from springs hath flowed.

                    The lowing herd, the prancing steed

                         Received we from Thy hand.

                    And we, this day, return oar meed

                         Of praise, throughout the land.

                    Then let us sing with earnest hearts,

                         Tho' joyful be each lay,

                    And thankful ev'ry song that starts

                         On this Thanksgiving Day.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Related posts:

An Expatriate Canadian Poet's New England Thanksgiving

for Canadian Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Verse by J.K. Foran

Dr  Logan's Ode for Thanksgiving Day

An Old Thanksgiving Ode by James McIntyre

Jean Blewett's 'Thanksgiving Song'

Jean Blewett's 'Thanksgiving Prayer'

Edna Jaques' Award-Winning Thanksgiving Verse

Thanksgiving in the Midst of War

'October in War Time'

A Thanksgiving Hymn

Thanksgiving Day Advice

'Thanksgiving Morn'

Bliss Carman's Lesser-Known Thanksgiving Poem

One Woman's Boy's Own Adventure

Gold in Mosquito Creek
Dickson Reynolds [Helen Dickson Reyonds]
London: Museum Press, [1952]
192 pages

Strapping fifteen-year-old Randy Piers and younger brother Tom are preparing Old Pete the pack pony for a three-day fishing excursion to Mosquito Creek when up pops Lester Barnes. The Piers boys are none too pleased. A softie from New York City dolled up in a dude ranch outfit (here I'm paraphrasing Tom), Lester asks if he can come along. Good Canadians, Randy and Tom are far too polite to deny the visitor's request.

Lester's investor dad shells out dough for additional grub and the trio set out from Copperville. The town is a product of the author's imagination, but British Columbia's Mosquito Creek, is very real. And there is gold.

The fishing party is crossing a railway bridge when sounds the "wailing hoot of a train whistle." Old Pete is so spooked that all four of his legs fall between the ties. I was certain that one or more would be broken, which shows what little I know about pack ponies. Pete is just fine. I also learned that I don't know a lot about locomotives. This one manages to stop before reaching Pete, and the boys raise the pony with the aid of ropes and a blanket. Just how this is done isn't described in detail; after several readings, I'm still not sure exactly how it worked.

The trio manage to reach Mosquito Creek without further incidence, but once there Lester slips on a rock and is carried away by a fast moving current. Randy tries to save him, only to be swept away himself. Both are rescued by surprisingly spry old sourdough Jake Olsen. Once the boys are safe and on solid ground, he suggests they get out of their wet clothes.

Make nothing of that, Jake doesn't want them to catch cold.

The old man makes a living, of sorts, panning for gold in Mosquito Creek. Lester learns that Jake once sought fortune in the Klondike, leading to my favourite line of dialogue: 

"Oh boy! Were you up there?" Lester almost squealed with excitement. "Tell us some yarns, oh please!"

Jake shares a chilling story about a friend freezing to death, but nothing more. With winter a few months away, the old man is more focussed on building a cabin. He hires the Piers brothers to pan for gold while he gets to it. Lionel can't join in because he and his father are returning east to what I'm assuming is a Park Avenue penthouse. 

As the jacket illustration suggests, Gold in Mosquito Creek is a novel of adventure and danger. The railway bridge and slippery rock provide something of a template; if something can go wrong, it will go wrong. Randy fails to tie a tent flap, so wakes up to sleeping skunk. Jake fells trees to make his cabin, until a tree falls on him. Thoughts that a bear might eat their provisions are followed by a bear eating their provisions. At a Copperville picnic, Tom worries over keeping his new ice cream pants clean, only to have them stained by grape juice. Back at Mosquito Creek, he doesn't wear hiking boots, and so strains his ankle. Will the boys encounter another bear? You can bet on it.

Lurking in the background is a "tough-looking hombre" (here I'm quoting Tom), whom the Piers brothers first encounter in Copperville, just as they're beginning to work for Jake:

The swarthy man is a foreigner, but not a good one like Lester's wealthy investor dad. The reader is made aware of just how bad the earring-wearing man is by the fact that he's been tardy in paying a dentist's bill.

As it turns out, the swarthy foreigner is the leader of the Gold Ring Gang; a "saturnine" man serves as his number two. They've been moving about Copperville for some time. The third member of the gang was shot at the Bodega Hotel – reason unknown – and ends up sharing a hospital room with Jake (who almost lost a foot on account of that dang tree). This is how the bad men learn that the old sourdough has two or three thousand dollars worth of nuggets squirreled away at his camp.

It's at this point that Gold in Mosquito Creek shifts gears, revealing Dickson Reynolds as Helen Dickson Reynolds, author of He Will Return. The plot turns ridiculous, the dialogue laughable, and I felt I was finally getting my money's worth. 

The gang is successful in stealing Jake's gold. In doing so, one or more of their members tries to shoot Randy and Tom goes missing. It's assumed that the younger of the two Pierce boys has been kidnapped or killed. Their parents are not consulted when Copperville Constable Denny Day enlists young Randy to spy on the gang's hideout. Somehow he assumes the men won't recognize the boy they tried to kill. It's all bit of a disaster, as reflected on these two pages. The dialogue is worth the read:

cliquez pour agrandir

Everything in Gold in Mosquito Creek is fairly cut and dry. It's not a mystery novel, yet mysteries remain, the foremost being that an American criminals might cross the border, driving thousands of kilometres in a stolen car to a remote region of British Columbia. The Gold Ring Gang spend weeks in Copperville, taking rooms in the Bodega Hotel. The town's police know they are there and do nothing; not even when one of the gang is shot.

That's something, right? Someone shot in a small town

Maybe not.

All this for a haul of nuggets amounting to between two and three thousand dollars ($33,000 - $49,500 today).

Was that really worth it?

They tried to kill Randy.

I'll never understand the criminal mind.  

Object and Access: Gold in Mosquito Creek was first published in 1946 by Thomas Nelson & Sons, New York, NY. A bulky book bound in red boards, the Museum Press edition shares nothing in terms of design. The Nelson edition features a cover and six illustrations by American artist Grattan Condon. His rendition of the scene depicted on the British jacket is superior.

There has never been a Canadian edition.

My Museum Press copy was purchased earlier this year from a British bookseller. Price £2.50. Evidence suggests that it was a Christmas gift.

Library and Archives and seven of our academic libraries hold copies of the Museum and/or Nelson editions.

As I write, one Museum copy is being sold online. Price: £8.00.

The Nelson edition is nowhere in sight.

Related posts:

But Why Would You Want Him To?

The Very Strange Story of a Disulusional Abandoned Wife

Worst. Dialogue. Ever.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Self-Improvement

Pagan Love
John Murray Gibbon
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1922
310 pages

The start of this novel sees a suicide thwarted. Walter Oliphant awakens to the dawn of a day he'd determined would be his last. He walks leisurely, fully resolved, to the bank of the Thames, where he catches sight of a figure falling into the drink:

Nothing to be seen yes, there a ripple and there a hand stretched out of the waters. It was not a hand that he altogether welcomed, but hands to shake were rare in these days, and so our loiterer stretched out to grasp it. This was foolish, for the grasp of a drowning man is not so easy to escape. The hand that clung to his became an arm and a shoulder and then, by some instinct, our loiterer used his feet as leverage, and pulled out from the stream a Man.

The "Man" had been mugged. A wallet had been stolen. A whack on the back of the head had been given. The victim is Frank A. Neruda, a visiting millionaire from New York City.

But this is Walter's tale, and the backstory is not pretty.

Walter had wanted to kill himself because he could not longer stand the pain of starvation. A young poet from Aberdeen, his condition has as much to do with public disinterest in his work as it does the Great War, during which he served as cannon fodder. "The two years of after-the-war had reduced him to atrophied inertia, a bundle of nerves barely attached to skin and bone."

Neruda takes Walter under a wet wing, slowly nursing him back to health. In doing so, the millionaire seeks to inspire by sharing the Frank A. Neruda Story. It begins with a Czech childhood, a mother's death, and emigration to America. Weeks after arrival, the father is crushed in a Pennsylvania coal mine.

Neruda's ascent begins as an orphaned breaker boy working by oil lamp at that same mine, and leads to a commercial empire valued at ten million American dollars.

A self-described self-efficiency expert, Neruda is intent on remaking Walter. The first lesson takes the form of a performance:

"Have you ever considered what puppets we all are?" remarked Neruda. He was manipulating, on a tiny stage, for Walter's entertainment, a marionette play in which Faust sold his soul to Mephistopheles and became a master of magic, raising spirits from the dead until the Devil came to fetch him, Neruda was so expert with the fantastic figurines, that the Devil himself could not be more inhumanly human.

   "Who is it that holds the strings?" asked Walter.

   "The God of Success for me," said Neruda. "I haven't yet made up my mind whether I am Faust or Mephistopheles.

This is by far the most whimsical scene in the novel. As part of his make-over, Walter is inundated with books and articles. All written in a staccato style, they coach Success:

"As you dress, repeat to yourself inspiring sentences. As you are brushing your teeth, say to yourself firmly:

   "'Let me never be the Skeleton In the Family Cupboard.'

   "When you are buckling on your garters, repeat these words three times:

            'I will not be a Has-Been.

             I will not be a Has-Been.

             I will not be a Has-Been.'

   "When you are tying your necktie, say four times:

            'Why should I not be a Pierpont Morgan?

             Why should I not be a Pierpont Morgan?

             Why should I not be a Pierpont Morgan?

             Why should I not be a Pierpont Morgan?'

   "Be god-like in your bearing. Grab off opportunity. Don't be afraid to be a Rockefeller. Learn to talk, and cash in on your conversation. Concentrate on Confidence. Get busy with old Tempus Fugit. Say 'Boo' to worry. Be virile, vital, valiant, versatile, invincible, vigorous. Know yourself for a Giant. Cultivate health, hope, happiness, hilarity, holiness. Prime yourself with pep, pugnacity, psychology and perfection. Purify the soul with purpose and publicity. Vibrate your solar complex. Conserve every moment. Develop your Conscious Cosmos and incarnate your essential quiddity. Put punch into your pith and ginger into your jocosity. Carry on your face the lines of rectitude and integrity. Move among the Brighter Intellects and the Masterfully Tactful. While your dinner digests, read Ruskin's Crown of Wild Olives [sic]. Cultivate Art. You can study Michael Angelo while you are sipping soup."

Neruda and apprentice travel by way of Quebec City to New York where Walter is installed as a staff writer for the millionaire's Aduren Publishing. Walter belongs to the company's House-Organ Department, contributing to publications tailored for corporate interests. Aduren's other half is the Foreign-Language Newspaper Agency. Though there is no communication between the Department and Agency, their raisons d'être are the very same same. Both are intended to mollify workers.

Walter rises quickly through the ranks at Aduren, his income seeming to double every fortnight.

A Success Story!

Before long, Walter is appointed General Editor of the House-Organ Department. He finds himself living in luxury building owned, as he discovers, by Frank A. Neruda. The millionaire demands Walter's time, but there are occasions to slip away.

The Scot has taken a shine to his boss's pretty, plump, petite secretary Beatrice Anderson, a gal from British Columbia who is caring for her dad. Father Tom Anderson is going blind, the result of a mine explosion, and hopes that New York doctors might save his eyesight. The Andersons introduce Walter to a welcoming contingent of Canadian expats: a musician, a singer, a painter, a doctor, and another writer. The sociability is a welcome relief from the Aduren day-to-day; a refuge, that is spoiled when Walter recognizes Neruda's attempts to separate him from Beatrice.

But why?

Anyone thinking of giving Pagan Love a read is advised to stop here.

The Regina Morning Leader, 4 November 1922

The 4 November 1922 Regina Morning Leader carried one of the novel's earliest reviews. For a newspaper, it's unusually long. It's also extremely positive, though its author, Prof William Talbot Allison of the University of Manitoba, expects not all will not share his opinion. He predicts that Pagan Love would "divide the critics and the reading public, to say nothing of Scotsman, New Yorkers, Labor leaders, Czechs, romanticists, moral uplifters, and the fair sex."

I would've thought the same, yet I've not found a single review that isn't enthusiastic about Pagan Love. The following year, the novel was awarded a prix David.  

Le Nationaliste et Le Devoir, 24 May 1923

Returning to Allison:

I read this story with avidity to the last line of the last page; in other words, I found it intensely interesting, but if I were at liberty to disclose the plot, which in fairness to Mr. Gibbon and to the readers of his book, I am unable to do, I could register my own personal reactions.

In fact, the professor does share his personal reactions – and the greater percentage of the plot. What Allison doesn't share is anything beyond the first twenty-three (of twenty-nine) chapters.

In 1922, Pagan Love was sold as "A Story of Mystery and Romance with a Surprising Climax."

I have no doubt readers of one hundred and one years ago were surprised. This twentieth-century boy – much younger than Marc Bolan – had the advantage of a twenty-first century viewpoint. The novel's great reveal was unexpected, though it didn't come as a great shock. There were hints, the most interesting being a conversation Neruda and Walter share as they stroll arm-in-arm during outside the Château Frontenac.

At the climax, Frank A. Neruda is revealed as a beautiful woman. In fact, she reveals herself – scantily-clad as Cleopatra for a masquerade ball. Her love for Walter gives the novel its title.

I'll say more because I don't want to spoil every last thing.

The St Petersburg Times, 18 March 1923

The first Canadian edition of Pagan Love was published by McClelland & Stewart. The first American edition was published by transplanted Torontonian George H. Doran. Neither company went back for a second printing. Given the critical reception, I found this surprising; all the more so because there is evidence of controversy.

Pagan Love is a tragedy. Walter may be the protagonist, but at the end of the day it is the story of a woman who must disguise herself as a man so as to achieve wealth and power. As a girl, it was only by pretending to be a boy – a breaker boy – that she was able to place a foot on lowest rung of the ladder that brought her success. I took away this lesson and two more:

It's hard to make an honest buck.

In business, it's who you know.

Personal note: Wikipedia informs that John Murray Gibbon had "a major impact on the creation of a bilingual, multicultural, national culture," yet I never encountered his name in high school. The same can be said about my university years, during which I majored in Canadian Studies and English. The Canadian Encyclopedia informs: "His book Canadian Mosaic (1938) popularized the 'mosaic' as a metaphor for the diversity of 'the Canadian people.' It has since been used by politicians, educators and policy makers to describe the cultural makeup of the country."

In my many decades, I've yet to hear a politician, educator or policy maker reference Gibbon.

Object and Access: An attractive hardcover, typical of its time, lacking the all-too-rare dust jacket. I purchased my copy, the first Canadian edition, earlier this year from a St John bookseller. Price: US$35. Awaiting its arrival, a Yankee bookseller listed a jacketless but inscribed copy at US$25, but what you really want is an inscribed Canadian first in dust jacket. Offered by a Nova Scotia bookseller, it can be found online at US$250.

I share the bookseller's photo so as to encourage the sale. If that isn't enough, I add that the inscription is addressed to a woman named Beatrice.

The novel has been out of print ever since.

Of all the out-of-print titles I've read, Pagan Love ranks amongst the two or three most deserving of a reissue.

I'm looking to you Invisible Publishing.

Related post:

A Curious Romance about a Closeted, Corseted, Petticoated Poet

and His Masculine Twin Sister