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left. Finally she asked, “Is it all right for me to walk in the center of the room now?”
    When the detective nodded, she began a search of chairs, table, bookcase, window sills, and desk. Between two papers on her father’s desk, she found a small piece of tweed cloth.
    “I may have a clue!” she told the men excitedly.
    Nancy called Miss Robertson into the room and asked her if any papers had been scattered on the floor when she found Mr. Drew there.
    “Oh, yes,” the secretary replied. “They were all over the place. I picked them up and put them on your father’s desk.”
    Nancy turned to the detectives. “I believe this piece of tweed may have been torn from the coat of the man who attacked my father,” she said.
    One of them put the scrap of cloth in an envelope and dropped it into his pocket. “I guess your father pulled it from the fellow’s coat. It may be a big help to us.”
    Nancy left the office and returned to the hospital. After reporting the latest finding to her father, she asked him when he would be able to make the Hawaiian trip.
    “Oh, I’ll follow you in a few days,” he said cheerily.
    “But you’ll be home alone,” Nancy protested.
    Mr. Drew, realizing how worried his daughter was that he might be attacked again, promised her he would not stay alone. “I’ll move down to the club for a few nights,” he said.
    Nancy made two more trips to the hospital that day, but there was no further news about Mr. Drew’s attacker.
    Early the next morning Mr. Marvin drove Bess, George, and their suitcases in the family station wagon to the Drew home. Nancy and Hannah climbed in and the travelers set off for the airport.
    It was a perfect day for flying and within an hour Nancy and her friends were winging their way across the United States toward California.
    “We’re actually above the clouds,” remarked Bess, who was seated next to the window. “I can’t see any land below us.”
    “At this altitude you wouldn’t see much, anyway,” spoke up George, seated beside her cousin. “We’re flying pretty high.”
    Nancy’s seatmate was a beautiful young woman who had slept most of the time. She awoke as luncheon was served on trays fastened into the armrests. After lunch she chatted with the girls. Learning that they were on their way to Honolulu, she asked:
    “Are you stopping over at Los Angeles?”
    “Yes, we are,” replied Nancy. “For several hours in fact. We’re taking the night plane across the Pacific.”
    “If you have no plans,” said the young woman, who had introduced herself as Sue Rossiter, “I have a suggestion of something interesting you might do—watch a movie being filmed. First, I should tell you that I’m an actress. The Bramley studio, where I work, is about to start filming a picture. It’s a fantasy. I play the lead, a mermaid off Waikiki Beach.”
    “What an interesting part!” remarked Nancy, smiling.
    Sue Rossiter went on to say that the interior scenes for the picture would be made in the studio. “But the outdoor scenes,” she added, “are actually going to be shot at Waikiki.”
    To Nancy’s disappointment, she learned that the movie company would not make the Hawaiian trip for some time. By then the visitors from River Heights probably would have left the Islands.
    But the actress said, “Why don’t you come to the studio? I’ll see that you have passes.”
    “We’d love to,” said Nancy. She glanced intently at her seatmate for a moment, then added, “Isn’t your stage name Fran Johnson?”
    The young woman laughed and nodded. “I’ll be expecting you at the studio.”
    When the plane reached Los Angeles, the actress was met by a young man and driven off at once. After Hannah Gruen and the three girls had checked their baggage on the Honolulu plane, Nancy wired Ned to inform him which flight they were taking. Then the four took a taxi to the Bramley studio. They had not gone far on the boulevard when Bess, looking out the rear