"It's all right, deary. No one thinks but what you're ill. How did you get along?"
"Very well, Nanny. I'll tell you all later. Don't let any of the servants come upstairs for at least an hour."
"I'll tell you later. Leave me alone for the present."
"Just one word, Miss Clarice," implored the nurse; "Master Ferdy. Is he quite safe now?"
"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.
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.