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like our being here.”
    Nancy nodded and the girls hurried off in the opposite direction. On the way home, Nancy said, “I believe if young Tony could speak English he might give us some clues.”
    “How do you know the boy’s name is Tony?” Junie asked.
    Nancy grinned. “I saw it on his sweater!”
    “Good observation!” Junie praised. “I didn’t even notice his sweater.”
    As soon as the girls reached the farmhouse, Nancy called her father’s office. He was there and asked how she was progressing with the mystery.
    “Not very well,” she replied. “I need your help.”
    “Sure thing. What can I do for you?”
    “Will you please find out from the Immigration Department all you can about Salvatore Rocco, who came to the United States from Italy about ten years ago?” She told her father all she had learned so far.
    “I see you’ve been busy,” he said. “I’ll check with Immigration and let you know the answer.”
    After the call, the girls went to look at the mysterious parchment again. They puzzled over it for some time before Junie asked Nancy if she had come up with any new theories.
    Nancy’s eyes sparkled. “I have a wild guess!” she said.

CHAPTER VII
    A Mean Ram
     
     
     
    “I THINK we can assume,” Nancy said to Junie, “that Mr. Salvatore Rocco knows more about the parchment than he is telling. The initial A on it could stand for Anthony, and a common nickname for Anthony is Tony.”
    Junie knit her brows. “Are you trying to say that Tony, the little boy we met on Mr. Rocco’s farm, might be the baby in this parchment picture?”
    Nancy nodded. “I told you it was a wild guess.”
    “It sure is,” Junie agreed, “but I respect your hunches.”
    Mr. Flockhart walked into the room and was told Nancy’s latest theory. He chuckled, but said he was impressed with the idea. “Nancy, please continue with your suppositions. It sounds like an intriguing story, and the first hypothesis that has been made so far in the mystery of the parchment.”
    Junie remarked that the man pictured on the parchment, who had his back to the viewer, could be the boy’s father. “But why wouldn’t he be facing the viewer? Was the artist ashamed of him?”
    “That’s a possible answer,” her father agreed. “On the other hand, maybe the artist just didn’t like the person and turned him around so nobody could recognize him.” He said to Nancy, “Have you any more guesses?”
    “Not yet,” she replied, “but I may have after I learn more about little Tony and Mr. Salvatore Rocco.”
    Mr. Flockhart reminded the girls that it was generally believed in the community that Mr. Rocco was the child’s uncle and that the boy’s parents had died.
    “That gives me an idea,” Nancy said. “The last picture on the parchment portrays the collision of a sailing ship and a steamer. Maybe,” she added, “Tony’s parents were killed in the accident.”
    “Very reasonable assumption,” Mr. Flockhart said. “I wonder if Mr. Rocco legally adopted his nephew.”
    “I guess,” said Junie, “that we’d have to go to Italy to find out.” She teased, “Nancy Drew, detective, Milano is getting closer and closer.”
    Nancy grinned. “Maybe, but I have a hunch I’ll solve the mystery right here at Triple Creek Farm.”
    Junie and her father looked at their guest, then Junie said, “Nancy Drew, you’re holding back one of your hunches, or theories, or wild guesses. Come on, what is it?”
    Nancy nodded. “You’re right. In the first place, I’m not convinced that Mr. Rocco’s story to Mr. Flockhart and to us about buying the painting at an auction is true. I’ve been thinking of poor Tony. He has so much talent as an artist, and so does the person who made these paintings, whose initials are DB. That person could be a close relative of Tony’s. By the way, what’s his last name?”
    “I don’t know,” Junie’s father replied. “I have always supposed it was Rocco.”
    Mr. Flockhart said