The Secret in the Old Attic Read Online Free PDF Page B

Nancy offered. “If I get into the factory, what am I supposed to do? Locate Bushy Trott?”
    “Mainly that, yes. And if you can observe the process used to make the silk material like the one used in these scarves, we’ll have something to work on,” Mr. Drew declared.
    “It’s a stiff assignment,” his daughter mused. “But no harder than the case of the missing music.”
    “Perhaps if you work on my new project for a while, and then go back to the other one, you’ll approach it with a fresh perspective,” Mr. Drew suggested.
    After her father had gone to his office Nancy pondered how she might get in touch with Diane Dight without arousing the girl’s suspicions about her sudden show of friendship. While she was studying the problem, George Fayne dropped in.
    “Why the furrowed brow?” George asked.
    “I was thinking about how I’m going to cultivate a friendship with Diane Dight,” Nancy replied.
    “Diane Dight! How you could like that girl is a puzzle to me!” George protested.
    “Did I say I like her?” Nancy countered, her eyes twinkling.
    “I might have known.” George grinned. “You think she’s involved in some mystery. Don’t tell me she stole Fipp March’s music!”
    “No, not that. I’d just like to get her to take me through her father’s factory.”
    “She’d never bother,” George predicted. “Always too busy talking about herself and the latest dress she’s having made at Madame Paray’s.”
    “I don’t know that dressmaker.”
    “Mother’s having one made there to wear to a wedding. It’s funny you should mention Diane, because she was there the other day when Mother was, and raised a real storm. Diane wanted Madame Paray to stop all her other work and finish a dress so that she could take it away with her.”
    “So she isn’t in town,” said Nancy, disappointed.
    “I don’t know how long Diane is going to be away. Why don’t you phone her house and find out?”
    “It would be better if I could get the information some other way.”
    “How about the dressmaker?” George suggested. “Mother has a fitting there at eleven this morning. Suppose you and I go with her.”
    “A grand idea.”
    The two girls hurried off to join Mrs. Fayne. They caught her just leaving the house. A little later Nancy was introduced to Madame Paray. Nancy complimented the dressmaker on Diane Dight’s clothes.
    “Her figaire ees slim and easy to fit,” said the dressmaker modestly. “But I’m afraid she diet too much—and ze diet, eet keep you happy or else eet make you cross when you do not eat enough.”
    “Diane is out of town, isn’t she?” Nancy asked.
    “She return today on ze two-o’clock train. I am afraid zere will be anozzer scene when she come here to get her gown. Eet ees not finish.”
    Quickly Nancy saw an opportunity to get in touch with Diane. She offered to meet the girl at the station and tell her that the dress was not ready.
    “Oh, would you? Zat would be most kind. And please to tell Miss Diane also her papa wishes to hear from her as soon as she arrive.”
    George grinned broadly. Nancy had managed to arrange the perfect setup for herself! After Mrs. Fayne and the two girls left the dressmaker’s, George congratulated her friend.
    “I’m so happy, I’m inviting you both to lunch.” Nancy grinned. “Then I’ll tell you, Mrs. Fayne, what a schemer I am!”
    The meal was a delightful one, and immediately afterward Nancy hastened home to change her clothes. When she came downstairs half an hour later, Hannah Gruen looked at her in amazement.
    “Wherever are you going so dressed up?”
    “I’m going for a drive with the best-dressed girl in River Heights—Diane Dight!” Nancy giggled, gave the housekeeper a hug, and hurried away mysteriously. “Please give Dad that message if he should phone,” she called from the garage.
    Nancy drove immediately to the station. The two-o’clock train was just coming in. Quickly she parked the car and dashed