Miss Baird shook her head, being too stunned by the catastrophe to express her wonder or her reasons for disbelief. She went to her own room to dress, and Mrs. Rebson sailed down to the kitchen with the Domestic Prophet in her hand, ready to partake of a cup of tea, and to expatiate on the wonderful manner in which the seer's chance shot had hit the bull's-eye of the future.
Having completed a hasty toilet, Clarice took the key of Ferdy's bedroom from her toilette-table, and went to release him. As might be expected, seeing that the hour was early, Ferdy was still in bed, and fast asleep. When his sister shook him, he rolled over, and muttered something uncomplimentary. His debauch of the previous night had left him somewhat haggard; but the night's rest had, to a great extent, smoothed away the lines of dissipation from his handsome face.
"Get up, Ferdy," said Clarice, harshly. "Uncle Henry is dead."
The word--so terribly significant--penetrated even to Ferdy's shallow, sleepy brain, and he sat up with widely-opened, horrified brown eyes. "Uncle Henry!" he gasped. "Dead!"
"Murdered!" whispered his sister, grey and shaken.
"Wh-a-a-at!" Ferdy sprang out of bed, and his pink pyjamas formed a strange contrast to his white, horrified face. "Clarry, you--you--must--you must be mistaken!"
"I have just seen his body, with a wound in the breast, and with the mark of the Purple Fern on the forehead."
"Clarry!" Ferdinand caught her by the hand. "What I overheard yesterday in the drawing-room--what you and Ackworth and Jerce--?"
"Yes, yes," she said impatiently, and wrenched herself free. "Everything is plain. This man Osip murdered Uncle Henry last night. I have sent for the police. Dress yourself quickly, Ferdy, and come down to see them with me. I expect the Inspector will come, and I have also sent for Anthony."
Ferdy caught her by the dress, as she moved towards the door. "But, Clarry, Clarry, why has Uncle Henry been killed?"