The Secret of the Old Clock

I

The Lost Will

“It would be a shame if all that money went to the Tophams! They will fly higher than ever!”

Nancy Drew, a pretty girl of sixteen, leaned over the library table and addressed her father who sat reading a newspaper by the study lamp.

“I beg your pardon, Nancy. What were you saying about the Tophams?”

Carson Drew, a noted criminal and mystery-case lawyer, known far and wide for his work as a former district attorney, looked up from his evening paper and smiled indulgently upon his only daughter. Now, as he gave her his respectful attention, he was not particularly concerned with the Richard Topham family but rather with the rich glow of the lamp upon Nancy’s curly golden bob. Not at all the sort of head which one expected to indulge in serious thoughts, he told himself.