# The Secret of the Old Clock — Character guide

> Key figures in The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene.

- [Nancy Drew](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_of_the_old_clock_se/characters/nancy_drew.md): A teenage detective who turns a mantel clock's chime into a clue, chasing a missing will with the patience of a psychologist and the nerve of a pursuit driver.
- [Josiah Crowley](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_of_the_old_clock_se/characters/josiah_crowley.md): An eccentric dead man whose hidden notebook and scattered household goods turn his estate into a puzzle box that his greedy relatives never learned to open.
- [Carson Drew](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_of_the_old_clock_se/characters/carson_drew.md): Nancy's father, a calm lawyer whose court order and steady skepticism keep his daughter's hunches tethered to what a judge will actually accept.
- [Grace Horner](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_of_the_old_clock_se/characters/grace_horner.md): A Horner relative drawn into the Crowley search, whose connection to the family gives Nancy another thread to pull when the will seems hopelessly lost.
- [Allie Horner](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_of_the_old_clock_se/characters/allie_horner.md): A young Horner whose stake in the Crowley estate makes the missing will personal, and whose help keeps Nancy's investigation moving through family channels.
- [Abigail Rowen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_of_the_old_clock_se/characters/abigail_rowen.md): An elderly friend of Josiah Crowley whose memory, jogged by a chiming clock, releases the notebook clue that reframes the entire search.
- [Helen Corning](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_of_the_old_clock_se/characters/helen_corning.md): Helen Corning is the kind of friend whose ordinary summer plans accidentally hand Nancy Drew the excuse she needs, since her camp sits on Moon Lake, right where the Tophams banished the old Crowley timepiece. She belongs
- [Ada Topham](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_of_the_old_clock_se/characters/ada_topham.md): Ada Topham presides over the family that inherited Josiah Crowley's estate and treats Nancy's charity-ticket call as an opportunity to condescend about old junk. Her snobbery is her undoing: convinced the shabby Crowley 
- [Richard Topham](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_of_the_old_clock_se/characters/richard_topham.md): Mrs. Richard Topham rules the household that took Josiah Crowley in and now enjoys the estate his missing will would overturn. She cannot resist belittling the old Crowley clock to Nancy, boasting that it was too out of 
- [Jeff Tucker](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_of_the_old_clock_se/characters/jeff_tucker.md): Jeff Tucker is a shuffling, storytelling old man who once worked around the Crowley house and remembers its mantel clock as plain as day. He is comic and maddening by turns, insisting on a sobering wash at the cistern pu
- [Isabel Topham](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_of_the_old_clock_se/characters/isabel_topham.md): Daughter of the Topham family, involved in the conflict over the will.
- [Mr. Rolsted](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_of_the_old_clock_se/characters/mr_rolsted.md): A lawyer involved in the legal matters surrounding Josiah Crowley's estate.
- [Judge Hartgrave](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_of_the_old_clock_se/characters/judge_hartgrave.md): A judge who presides over legal proceedings related to the will.
- [William Mathews](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_of_the_old_clock_se/characters/william_mathews.md): A person involved in the events surrounding the missing will.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_of_the_old_clock_se/characters