Nancy Drew Summary

My fourth grade mystery book report.

The book Nancy Drew: The Secret in the Old Attic by Carolyn King is about an 18 year old girl trying to find an elderly man’s son’s long lost music.

In the beginning, Nancy and her dad inspect old letters written by a man named Fipp to his wife. Mr. March, Fipp’s father, knocks on the door. He is the one who owns the letters, and is the client too. He comes in, and explains that he is trying to look for some lost music written by his son. His son had passed away a few years ago. Fipp’s wife, Connie, passed away a few years later after Mr. March’s son did. Then Mr. March’s wife dies, and his only relative left is his granddaughter, Susan. Mr. March is very poor, so he needs to find Fipp’s music so he can sell it and get money to live comfortably. The letters are supposed to have clues to the missing music, because the purpose of them was to help the family find Fipp’s music to sell when the family needed to, since the music was never sold or published. Mr. Drew says he could find no clues, so Mr. March thanks him for trying and leaves, but as soon he steps out the door a rock is hurled at Mr. March’s head. Nothing happens to him, but he needs to rest and be cared for, so he stays at Nancy’s house for a few days and goes home.

Next, Nancy’s friends, Bess and her cousin George, come for a visit. Nancy tells about her recent mystery, and asks if they would like to help her search. They accept, and they go to Mr. March’s house. Mr. March says her has looked all over the house, but when Nancy asks if he had looked in the attic, he remembers he hasn’t. The girls go up there and investigate. They don’t find the music, but they find a few treasures that Mr. March can sell and earn a nice sum of money. They go downstairs. They tell Mr. March that they did not find the music, but found the treasures instead. Mr. March is then cheerful, and then turns on the radio, when he hears Fipp’s music coming from it! It alarms him, because his music was never published, which means it has been stolen! Nancy calms Mr. March down and she goes home. A few days later, Susan gets measles, so Nancy’s maid, Effie, becomes Mr. March’s temporary housekeeper. That night, Nancy cares for her until Susan finally fell asleep, so Nancy went home. After that, Nancy gets a phone call that morning from Effie. She says she saw a man sneaking around the house at night! Nancy quickly comes over, and finds out that what Effie said is true. Nancy thinks he may be the one who is stealing to music. Nancy decides to bring a portable radio from her house so they can listen for more music, so she goes over and gets it. She brings it over, and goes to the attic to try searching for the music, since she thinks there may still be some left, as they only heard one song. She doesn’t find the music. Instead, she goes downstairs and listens to the radio she brought with Mr. March, but they cannot find more music, so she goes home. At home, her father is looking at two women’s scarves. Her father says that his client, Mr. Booker, suspects that at his method of making silk at his factory has been stolen by the Dight’s factory, founded by Mr. Dight. He suspects a man named Bushy Trott, a worker at the Dight factory, stole it. Nancy decides she should go to the Booker factory and look at the Booker’s method, take some samples, and then go to the Dight factory, see their method, and take some samples. She would then have the samples inspected and see if they’re the same.

Later, Nancy goes to the Booker factory and finds out that they make silk by using beautiful spiders, which make thread for them and the workers weave it into silk and cloth. She takes a few samples, and a few days later she goes to the Dight factory. Unlike in the Booker factory, where they welcomed Nancy inside, she needs to sneak into the Dight factory. She manages to do this, and gets all the information needed. She finds out that the Dight factory uses the exact same method in making thread, only the spiders are black widows. She also becomes face to face with Bushy Trott while she was exploring the factory. She finds out the samples are exactly the same, and the Booker method indeed stolen. She also finds out that the publisher of the stolen music is “Ben Banks” and “Harry Halls” because she heard a few more of Fipp’s songs on the radio.

At the end, Nancy explores the attic and finally finds the remaining music, but is caught by Bushy Trott, the one who stealing the music, and takes all the music with him. Nancy catches up with him though with Bess, George, Mr. March, and her father. They called the police, and Bushy Trott was arrested. He said he was the one who stole the silk method along with the music. He sold the method to Mr. Dight, although Mr. Dight didn’t know it was stolen. Also, Bushy Trott was selling the music he sold to Horace Dight, A.K.A Harry Halls/Ben Banks.
Bushy Trott was sent to jail, and Mr. March sold the music (he got it back) and made sure he gave credits to his son, and was able to survive comfortably for a long, long time.