Read Online The Missing Italian Girl by Barbara Pope - Free Book Online Page A

sound innocent, even as she played the part of Judas. Her mind ran with questions. Why take the Russians away now? Have they found Barbereau’s body? Or have the police decided to round up all anarchists and foreigners? Maura shuddered. Either way, she was in danger. The French suspected Italians of all kinds of crimes and plots too.
    “Another bomb.”
    “Bomb?” This time Maura did not have to feign her innocence or alarm.
    “Yeah, over near Montmartre. Some Russian.” She cackled with glee. “Blew him up instead of anyone else. Served him right. At least that’s what the police told me.”
    “A Russian,” Maura whispered. Pyotr! But she daren’t ask more, daren’t admit that she knew a Russian boy. Or that she loved one. “I must find my sister,” she mumbled. “Please,” she pleaded. “We haven’t done anything wrong,” she lied.
    “I want you gone by tomorrow, you hear?” the woman said as she stepped aside.
    Maura could feel the concierge’s eyes boring into her back as she tried to walk up the stairs like a normal person. But her feet were leaden, as if already weighed down with the chains of a condemned prisoner. Still she persisted, one foot in front of the other, up all three flights, hoping against hope that Angela would be in the room waiting for her. They had to figure out what to do.
    As soon as she saw the wide-open door, she knew that her sister would not be there. Still she was shocked to see the destruction: books and pictures flung on the floor, clothes torn off their hooks and out of drawers, the bed mattress upended and slashed. Even Angela and Maura’s poor possessions had been strewn about and trampled on.
    Everything was going wrong. Everything! Frustrated and scared, Maura pulled the mattress back into place and flung herself upon the bed. She hid her head in her arms, trying to push the day and all its terrible events out of her mind. She didn’t know how long she had lain there before she felt a hand gently shaking her shoulder.
    “Maura.”
    Angela . Maura sat up and embraced her sister. “What happened?” she asked.
    “I don’t know. I ran. Vera and Lidia told me to hide and not come back for a while. Do you think all this,” Angela grimaced as she looked about the room, “all this is because of us?”
    Maura shook her head.
    “If it is,” Angela continued, “then we need to go to the police. We need to confess. We can’t let—”
    “Stop it. Stop talking nonsense.” Maura put her hand over Angela’s mouth and peered into her eyes. “We can’t go to the police. They’ll send us to the guillotine, and Pyotr too.” Pyotr! Was he even alive? “Listen,” she said more calmly, “Vera and Lidia were arrested because they are anarchists. Maybe there is another roundup.”
    Maura let go of Angela and told her what she had found out. When Angela heard there was a possibility that a Russian had been killed, she rose from the bed and began picking up and folding the scattered clothes, one by one, placing them on the table.
    “It may not be Pyotr, you know. Maybe it’s just a rumor,” Maura offered.
    Still Angela lifted and folded, flattening each blouse and skirt without saying a word. This was no good. They had decisions to make.
    “We have to find out for sure. You stay here,” Maura ordered. “Fix things up for when Vera and Lidia come back.” Maura swallowed hard, suppressing her own doubts about whether the Russian girls would ever be allowed to come back. “I’ll go and see if I can find out if anything really happened near Montmartre.”
    “Don’t leave me!” Angela suddenly came to life and grabbed Maura’s arm.
    Maura patted her hand. “Don’t worry. I’m only going to look for a newspaper. Surely the late editions will have something. And, if not, we’ll know it was all lies. That will be good, don’t you think?” she added, searching for some way to reassure her sister.
    Angela nodded and turned away, surveying the destruction before