The golden stone walls of the spectacular medieval sea town of Dubrovnik have defended its people from foreign empires and marauders for more than 800 years. The walls have withstood earthquakes and remained defiant even in modern times, providing shelter from the ravages of modern warfare.

During the past two weeks, however, the people of this tiny city - veterans of too many wars but few big-city crimes - have been shocked into wondering if their beloved city may be harbouring an enemy within.

"We are good at war," said Vinko Cosmai, "but we do not have the crime. Every night on Croatian TV we see CSI but we cannot pretend to be detectives. In three generations of my family here, we do not see this [type of] crime. People remember the last homicide in 2001, it is so rare."

Seated on a bar stool in the outdoor atrium of his Latino bar, Club Fuego, Vinko Cosmai, a square-jawed man with a perfectly sculpted crewcut, gestured inside to a small group of travellers clustered around a low table singing spiritedly with a Rocky Horror Picture Show classic.

"You from Australia have taught us a good lesson. You lose one Australian and you care, you send people to find her. You press the police to do really something. It is a good example for us, Australians caring. When we suffered the war, nobody tried to see what happened, to look for people. We could learn."

Mr Cosmai's club, on the boundary of the walled town and opposite the opulent 110-year-old palace which became Dubrovnik's first hotel, has become the focus of intense and unwanted attention as the city's police attempt to unravel the mysterious disappearance two weeks ago of the Melbourne 21-year-old Britt Lapthorne.

New CCTV cameras are mounted on a pole about 30 metres from the club while an enormous electronic screen in the shape of a cube shows a gruelling continuous loop of footage as a memorial to the homeland wars and the terrible six-month siege of 1991. The young travellers who walk past it every day in search of drinks and music appear oblivious to its meaning.

In fact, both the club and the town itself bear little resemblance to the rather more down-at-heel haunts usually favoured by Australia's army of young backpackers. Dubrovnik is expensive, it is quiet and it is its clifftop beauty - not its nightlife - that drives its flourishing tourist trade.

The Herald visited the old town's clubs and pubs on Wednesday night, the same mid-week night that Ms Lapthorne disappeared two weeks ago. At Club Fuego, the bar was relatively quiet with groups drinking and lounging on armchairs inside the atrium and others singing along inside. Downstairs, in an enormous room, another bar played dance music but only a handful had taken to the floor.

"This is the only bar that gives a free drink with the cover price, young people like it very much and it is the only discoteque in Dubrovnik. But we are careful, we do not play techno music, we play Latino, commercial music. Latino is tragedy music to drug users. We make sure it is not attractive to such people," Mr Cosmai said.

"If something happened, someone hit someone or something . . . my staff would remember. This is not the kind of place where these things happen and nobody notice."

For the Lapthorne family, the entire, terrible saga represents a puzzle as difficult to navigate as Dubrovnik's shiny, white maze-like streets.