"Yes," said Clarice, lying to save pain to that faithful old heart; "I think Ferdy is safe, Nanny. Now go."
Mrs. Rebson, quite satisfied, departed, and kept the servants downstairs, according to her instructions. Clarice went at once to Ferdy's room, and began to search. For twenty minutes she was unsuccessful, as she came across nothing suspicious. It was a difficult search, as she did not know what to look for. But she judged that it might be a letter or a blood-stained shirt, or something likely to implicate her brother in the crime. Several times she stopped turning out drawers and examining the wardrobe to laugh at the folly which possessed her to believe in Zara's lies. But some feeling that there might be truth in the dancer's hint made her search on. And yet Clarice could not believe that Ferdy, whom she had locked in this very room, had anything to do with so awful a crime. Let alone the fact that Ferdy, although foolish, was not wicked.
But the end came at last, and she found what she sought--and what she sought was evidence implicating Ferdy. In a small drawer, wrapped up carefully in an old silk tie, the girl found a small india-rubber stamp. With a wildly beating heart, she dipped this in water to moisten it, and pressed hard on a scrap of shaving paper. She removed the stamp, and found on the paper a faint impression of the Purple Fern.
[CHAPTER XXI]
ACKWORTH'S NEWS
Mrs. Rebson, being a woman, and fond of gossip, had her fair share of curiosity. Also she was anxious to hear what Clarice had been doing in London, and to know exactly how she had saved Ferdy, although Mrs. Rebson had a very vague idea of what Ferdy was to be saved from. That her darling had anything to do with the crime never entered her foolish old head. However, her impatience would not permit her to stay downstairs longer than an hour, so she went back to the room of her young mistress as soon as she could.
Clarice was not within, and Mrs. Rebson was puzzled. She hunted through the other rooms on the same floor, and at length came to Ferdy's apartment. Here she found the room in disorder, and Clarice lying on the carpet in a dead faint. Considerably alarmed, Mrs. Rebson got water and vinegar and sal volatile, and all such-like aids to insensible people. Shortly Clarice revived and sat up with a dazed look. But as soon as a memory of what she had found came back to her with a rush, she struggled to her feet, and crushed up the scrap of shaving-paper upon which she had impressed the fern. The stamp itself she had held closely in her left hand all the time she was insensible, so she did not think that her dim-eyed old nurse had seen anything. More than that, Mrs. Rebson ascribed to the London trip this unexampled behaviour on the part of the girl. Never before had strong-minded Clarice Baird lost her senses.
"Come and lie down, deary," coaxed Mrs. Rebson, leading the girl back to her own room; "you're fairly worn out with gadding about that nasty London. I'll bring you up some tea."
"Do, Nanny," said Clarice, faintly, and when the nurse left the room, she lay passively upon her bed.
What she felt at the moment no one knew, and no one could ever know. The stamp of the Purple Fern was inseparably connected with the many murders, and that it should be in Ferdy's bedroom, hidden away so carefully, seemed terrible and inexplicable. Ferdy could not have murdered his guardian, since he had been locked up in his room, and yet the stamp which had been used to impress the fatal mark on the forehead of the dead was in Ferdy's possession. Of course, Osip, who was really the murderer, might have had another stamp. Certainly he must have had another stamp, and no doubt each member of the triumvirate possessed a similar article. Ferdy was guiltless, and Osip had done the deed. And yet, how came it that Ferdy had this particular stamp in his possession? Clarice could have shrieked with fear and horror, and had to roll over on her pillow to prevent herself from crying out. And then another agonised thought came into her tormented mind.