"I'll talk fast. Visitors aren't allowed here. If Kroon should find me talking to you, he might discharge me, and that mustn't happen."

"Can't we go some place where he won't see us?" Nancy asked. She did not want to miss the opportunity to hear everything the clown might want to tell her.

"No, no!" he said quickly. "This is the story. Lolita wears a horse charm on a necklace. It matches the charms on your bracelet and I noticed one is missing. Lolita once said she thought hers came from another piece of jewelry."

"Oh, I must see the necklace!" Nancy said. "Please take me to Lolita."

The clown shook his head. He said that the aerialist was resting and must not be disturbed before the evening performance.

"It's Kroon we must be careful about." Pietro sighed. "I just don't want him to become angry at Lolita."

"I understand," Nancy agreed. "Go ahead with your story."

Pietro said that Lolita was Mr. and Mrs. Kroon's adopted daughter. She had lived with them since she was eight years old.

"Have the Kroons and Lolita always been in the circus?" Nancy asked.

The clown nodded and said that Lolita's own parents had been trapeze artists.

"They were known as the Flying Flanders," he explained. "I'm told they were very fine performers."

"What were their names?" Nancy questioned.

"John and Lola Flanders. I never knew them," the clown went on. "The story was that when Lolita was eight years old, her parents were killed in Europe while performing their flying act. It was then that the Kroons brought Lolita to the United States."

"And you think Lolita's horse charm might have belonged on my bracelet?" Nancy asked.

"It's possible. I just thought you two might get together and find out."

"I'll certainly do that," Nancy promised.

She asked Pietro if Lolita's parents had taught their daughter to be an aerialist.