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Mabel McLean: Mysterious Mystery Writer
Like the stories she
wrote, many of the
details of Mabel
McLean Billett's life are a bit
of a mystery. It is known that
Mabel Claire McLean was
born in Hensall on Decem-
ber 22, 1882. She was the
youngest of two daughters
born to William and Eliza-
beth McLean. Her father
was a 'machinist agent.' By
1901, the family lived in Sea -
forth where her sister Mag-
gie taught school and Mabel
worked as a stenographer.
She moved to Manitoba
before the First World War.
Sometime in the 1920s, she
met and married Great War
veteran Frederick
Broughton Billett. They
moved to Merritt, British
Columbia where Frederick
was employed as an Impe-
rial Oil transfer agent where
she wrote several short sto-
ries. In 1924, Billett travelled
to England and Germany.
She attended the first Wag-
nerian Festival in Bayreuth
since the end of the Great
War. She was 'privileged' be
at one of the performances
where one of the Kaiser's
sons was in attendance. She
also gained an interview
with composer Siegfried
Wagner, the son of the great
German composer, Richard
Wagner.
In a July 1928 interview
with 'The London Free
Press', Billet said that she
"came suddenly to the con-
clusion that a hundred short
stories could be written as
easily as four, if not as rap-
idly as four, and if 100 short
Huron History
David Yates
stories, why not a novel?"
Billett's first novel 'Calamity
House' (1927) was set in
Merritt, located in the Nicola
Valley of British Columbia's
interior. 'Calamity House'
was Billett's most successful
novel. It is a fictionalized
account of Dr. George Tutill
who lost a wife under
strange circumstances in
1923. Billett inflamed a
rumour about Mrs. Tutill's
death into a murder
mystery.
Literary critic Karyn
Huenemann described the
plot of Billett's 'Calamity
House' as the story of the
murderous Doctor
Townsend who kills his vic-
tims with heroin injec-
tions. Among Townsend's
victims were his wife and
son. The scandalous plot,
according to Huenemann,
was largely a product of Bil-
lett's "over fertile imagina-
tion" which novel earned
Billet some literary
notoriety.
The truth was far less sen-
sational. Mrs. Grace Tutill
died accidentally when she
fainted and hit her head
while suffering from the flu.
According to a 2003 article
published in the 'Merritt
Herald', one result of the
novel was that the RCMP
began to look upon Dr. Tutill
with suspicion. He was
charged Dr. 'rutin with sell-
ing morphine to an under-
cover constable in 1940 but
charge was dismissed due to
lack of evidence. The ordeal
may have accelerated Dr.
Tutill's death in September
1941. The 'Merritt Herald'
called Billett as "a red-
headed writer of potboiler
mysteries" who
'besmirched' the name of "a
good, caring doctor who
served his Nicola Valley and
Merritt communities well."
What tarnished Dr. Tutill's
reputation, greatly
enhanced Mabel Billett's lit-
erary fame. The 'London
Free Press' interview said
that Billett's novel received
"a generous number of most
satisfactory reviews which
hailed her book in the lead-
ing English periodicals."
Charles L. Graves, the liter-
ary critic for 'Punch' maga-
zine said he was impressed
with "the force, freshness
and drama of the Canadian
woman's book." Today, the
University of New Brun-
swick owns the only known
copy of the book in
existence.
In the wake of her literary
success, Billett returned to
England in 1927 and was
honoured with a member-
ship in the elite Lyceum
Club for women writers and
artists. Billett had intended
on a lengthy stay in England
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161
to hone her writing skills
"but after awhile I got home-
sick and had to come back
to Canada" in October 1927.
The Billett's moved into a
"quiet, orderly, charming,
orderly home" on St. James
Street in London, Ontario in
early 1928 where she and her
husband lived with their two
airedales. The 'Free Press'
marvelled that the "small
and vivacious lady, with a
humorous mouth and silkily
fine red -gold hair" was able
to manage "the tasks of car-
ing for a household, husband
and two dogs."
Billett claimed to "work
on a system" that allowed
her to balance her house-
wifely duties with that of
famous author. She called
the typewriter on her desk
her 'work room.' At the time
of the interview, she was
working on her next book
'The Palace of the Erg' which
promised, "to be one of next
year's outstanding novels."
Unfortunately, the novel
does not seem to have been
published. Her next novel
was 'The Shadow of the
Steppe' (1930) which was set
on the northwest frontier
between British India and
Afghanistan. With a stock of
stereotypical characters,
including a Russian spy; an
Indian princess and stalwart
British army officer, literary
critic Huenemann dismissed
the book as "one of the hard-
est to wade through." The
novel was panned or ignored
by her contemporaries.
Billett's next novel, 'The
Robot Detective' (1930)
should have been a pioneer
work where science fiction
meets the detective story. Yet,
that novel failed as well.
According to Huenemann,
Billett understood little of sci-
ence and her robot did little
more than spit out informa-
tion based on input from the
police. Perhaps a more
appropriate title for a modem
audience might have been
'The Computer Detective.'
Her last, and most contro-
versial novel, 'The Smooth
Silence' (1936) was a thinly
veiled fictional account of
the murder of a young Scot-
tish servant in service to a
socially prominent Vancou-
ver family. The threat of
legal action forced the pub-
lisher to suppress the book,
which was only later pub-
lished in four serial instal-
ments in 'The National
Home Monthly' journal. The
controversy over the story
may have been a factor in
the Billetts removal from
British Columbia to San
Francisco in 1936.
Little is known of Mabel
Billett's writing career while
living in the United
States. By 1946, she had
divorced Frederich Billett
who had returned to British
Columbia where he died at
Saanich in 1966.
Mabel McLean had one
more mystery of her own to
reveal, according to her 1946
U.S. naturalization papers,
she was previously married to
Alexander Vincent Darrach in
Chicago, Illinois in 1914. The
date that the first marriage
dissolved is unknown but
presumably she was legally
divorced by the time she mar-
ried Frederick Billett. In 1949,
she changed her name to
Claire McLean. Mabel Claire
Darrach Broughton Billett
McLean died in San Fran-
cisco on March 3, 1964. She
was Huron County's most
mysterious mystery writer.
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