With Roland holding Bruno’s leash, the boys went with whichever group Bruno seemed most keen to follow, but increasingly, the dog returned to the main path, insistently tugging the boys along.
Toby and Diana were the linchpins for the search, remaining on the path and acting as the reporting point for each group that split off to either side.
The going was slow, but as Toby had stipulated, the search was thorough. Every time they moved on, they did so in the certain knowledge that they hadn’t passed Evelyn by. That she had to be somewhere ahead of them on their circuit around the island.
At one point, Diana glanced up at the walls towering above, encircling the island’s central peak. “It’s lucky the seminary is in the middle. I seriously doubt she would go in there.”
Toby nodded. “She has to be somewhere between the seminary wall and the shore.” He glanced at Diana and met her eyes. “We’ll find her.”
Others agreed that the seminary wall was too high for a small girl to scale, but Diana recalled that the boys had found a gate in the wall that had been unlocked.
When the pair, still following Bruno, returned from scouting down a side path, she asked about the gate. “Could Evelyn have opened it and gone into the seminary grounds?”
Bryce frowned, but Roland shook his head. “The gate was heavy. It took three of us to push it open. Evelyn couldn’t do that, not by herself.”
Other locals agreed.
“It is a very heavy gate,” Giovanni said.
Toby nodded. “And if an acolyte or scholar found her and took her into the seminary, they’ll ask who she is and return her to the villa, so that’s all right.”
They continued doggedly searching the nooks and crannies and hidden benches that dotted the gardens on either side of the path. Twisting stone alleys leading off the main path had to be followed to their ends and the gardens there searched as well.
They forged on, but to the mounting concern of all involved, no sign of Evelyn—no sighting by anyone—was found.
The search party was nearing the northernmost tip of the island when they saw Maestro Cerruti and his secretary-acolyte approaching along the path.
The master saw them and called a cheery greeting, but even as he lowered his hand, he noticed the crowd and took in their expressions, and his own grew serious. The groups met, and he asked, “What is it? Is something wrong?”
Toby, Diana, and Giovanni explained, and Toby asked, “You haven’t seen her, by any chance?”
Realizing that the prior hadn’t met Evelyn, Diana quickly supplied, “She’s just five years old, with curly blond hair, and she was wearing a pink dress.”
“With a pink bow in her hair,” one of the other searchers added.
His expression somber, Cerruti shook his head, but his secretary repeated, “Pink dress?”
Everyone—including his master—focused on him.
“You’ve seen her?” Diana asked.
The man colored faintly. “Possibly.” He turned and pointed back along the path in the direction from which he and the prior had come. “It was when we were on our way to visit old Mama Gallo.”
“Where, exactly, did you see her?” Toby asked.
“It was just out of the corner of my eye, you understand,” the secretary said in halting English. “I could not tell you who it was—I just caught the flash of a pink dress down the alley farther along there. I think the child was passing through the weavers’ gate.”
“The weavers. The basket weavers?” When the secretary nodded, Diana turned to Toby. “Evelyn was fascinated by something about the basket weavers’ stall. I didn’t see what, but she was enthralled by something at that stall—she stood staring at it for quite a while.”
“Hmm.” The prior’s eyes had narrowed in thought. “The basket weavers are the Barberos, and they have a little girl of similar age. She is a very shy mite, the Barberos’ child.” He arched his brows at Toby and Diana. “Perhaps your Evelyn went to play with her.”
Relief flooded Diana. “Oh, that would be very like Evelyn.” She glanced at Toby. “She’s grown much more confident while on the island—more like she was in Vienna, and there, she would readily approach any other likely child and want to play.”
“She’s always looking to make friends,” Bryce put in.
All the searchers felt heartened and much more confident and hopeful, too.
Toby and Diana thanked the sharp-eyed secretary and, parting from him and the prior, who continued on their way down the path, Toby and Diana, with the mob of searchers at their backs, hurried on to the Barberos’ house.
