Bess persuaded Nancy and George to go into a pastry shop. “After all,” she reminded them as they walked inside and peered into a glass case full of cakes and honey pastries, “we won’t be eating dinner for a few more hours.”

After buying honeyed pastries called baklava, the girls turned back up the main street, retracing their steps through the maze of narrow lanes toward the hotel.

“We might as well go straight to the office,” Bess said when they reached the hotel half an hour later. “I can get my traveler’s checks and passport for ID.” For security reasons, the hotel requested that all valuables, including passports, be left in the office safe.

The three girls entered the arched double doors of the main building and went to the lobby desk, which was a crescent-shaped cutaway in one of the stucco walls. Zoe was behind the tiled counter, bent over the registration book.

When Bess told her about the miniature she had found in Chora, Zoe smiled and closed the registration book. “You should probably take your passports with you when you leave the hotel grounds,” Zoe told them. “But I’ll be happy to cash your traveler’s checks. Let me get your envelope from the safe.” She disappeared through a doorway behind the front desk.

Zoe returned a few minutes later, a grim frown on her face.

“What’s the matter?” Nancy asked.

“It’s the safe,” Zoe told her. “Someone has broken into it!”

Chapter Three

“Oh, no!” Bess cried. She and George exchanged a look of alarm.

“I don’t know how it happened,” Zoe said. “We always keep that safe locked, but when I went to dial the combination, the door just swung open.”

George shot Nancy and Bess a worried look. “Our passports were in there,” she pointed out. “And our traveler’s checks.”