Lobelia Sackville-Baggins was not murdered, as many of her Hobbiton neighbors predicted she might one day be, but passed away quietly in her home at the end of March after suffering from a congestion of the lungs throughout the winter. Her funeral was attended by these same neighbors and her Baggins relations out of courtesy rather than personal respect, for none of them could abide her. Since Lobelia's own family lived very far away, up in Hardbottle, and those who knew her best were too aged themselves to undertake so long a journey, few came; the Bagginses felt that it wouldn't do to have a small number of mourners at any relative's burial.

"Not that she doesn't deserve it," said Frodo's Aunt Dora to Peony Burrows, "but it would look mean of us to stay away. People would talk. And I must say I'm glad to give Lobelia her last farewell, and even more glad I've outlived her to do so! Besides, we must think of poor Thimula."

Frodo himself had not attended Lobelia's funeral, for it occurred on his "worst day," the anniversary of the Ring's destruction. The spells he always endured on that day weren't so bad as they'd been in his first years after the quest--he had the gemstone Queen Arwen had given him to ease the pain; he had athelas brewed on his bedroom fire to soothe him; and Sam was there to nurse him through the day, as always--but he lay abed in the dark in a restless and gloom-stricken state.

Sam normally liked to keep Frodo in bed for at least a week after one of his spells, but this year, Sam wasn't as diligent as usual, for Rosie was expecting a baby any day and required frequent attention. As soon as he felt well enough, Frodo had gotten up to show that he didn't need further nursing himself.

He was sitting in his dressing gown and reading before the parlor fire, when there was a knock at the front door. A minute later, Sam brought a visitor in to see him: Miss Thimula Bracegridle, Lobelia's niece. Thimula was a rather plain and reserved young woman, not far past forty, who had come with Lobelia from Hardbottle last autumn. Frodo didn't know her very well, but he'd met her several times at his Aunt Dora's house and had heard his family speak often of her. Since she had come to Hobbiton, she had gained the sympathy of all her neighbors; everyone agreed that putting up with Lobelia even when she was in good health was a trial to the most patient of temperaments, but Thimula had borne the burden of her ill and elderly aunt's querulousness without complaint. She was also reputed to be Lobelia's intended heir since her son Lotho's death. Aunt Dora had often remarked that that would only be justice, and the young woman deserved every penny she could get.

"I was so sorry to hear about your illness, Mr. Baggins," Thimula said once Frodo had expressed his condolences and invited her to sit down. "I'd hoped to find you better today."

"I am feeling better," Frodo assured her. "What can I do for you?" This couldn't be a simple social call; it was customary for the family of the recently deceased to be at home to receive callers, and not to go out themselves. "Have you come on a consultation?"

She nodded. "I know we haven't been as good neighbors as we ought to be, because of Aunt Lobelia, but I assure you I regard your talents as a detective more highly than she did."

Frodo smiled. "That's kind of you to say, Miss Bracegirdle." But nearly everyone in the Shire who knew his name thought more highly of him than Lobelia had.

"It's Auntie's will," Thimula explained. "She made one shortly before we came here to Hobbiton last year. Seven of our nearest Bracegirdle relatives were present to witness and sign it. I don't know all the contents, but Auntie always told me that she'd leave everything to me. Only..."

"What's wrong?"

"Well, I can't find it. She's hidden it away somewhere, and I'm certain she meant for you to help me find it."

"Me?" echoed Frodo.

Thimula nodded again. "She made a very odd remark just before she died, one night while I was sitting up by her bedside to nurse her. She said, 'You'll have all that's due to you, but I've left a few things to other people too--and something particular to that Frodo Baggins if he's clever as he claims to be.' I didn't understand her at the time. Auntie spoke a great deal of nonsense in those last days when her fever was high. After the funeral, I looked for the will to have it read officially and to give out whatever bequests she'd specified, but it wasn't in her strongbox, nor her jewelry-box, nor any other place where she might keep important papers. Our maid, Mimsy, said she was up and about just before this last bout of her illness, so she must have hidden it then. Can you help me to find it? Are you well enough to come with me and look?"

Frodo agreed to go over to Lobelia's house, just as soon as he had dressed. Before he left Bag End, he informed Sam.

"You're going out?" Sam responded. "But you're only just out of bed."

"Sam, I'm fine. I don't expect to be gone more than a few hours. I'll be home in time for tea."

Sam huffed and looked distressed. "Then I'm coming with you."

"You can't, Sam. You ought to be here to look after Rosie."

"Oh, I'll be all right," said Rosie, who was sitting in the front room, listening to this conversation. "Marigold said she was coming up today. You go off with Miss Thimula, and if I find I need you, Sam, I'll send for you. You might stop at Number 3 on your way down the Hill and ask her to come up right away, if you're bound to worry for me."

The Sackville-Baggins home was tucked in under the southern foot of the Hill. It was a neat and comfortable smial, but Lobelia had never liked it, for she had envied Bilbo's home at the hilltop from the first moment she'd seen it when she'd come to Hobbiton as a bride. Or so Bilbo had once told Frodo years ago.

Frodo began with a simple search, even though Thimula assured him that she'd looked everywhere she could think of; it wasn't the will itself he sought, but some clue as to its whereabouts. Since Thimula had been unable to find it, he guessed that Lobelia had sent it out of the house, perhaps in the care of some friend. If that were so, it was hard to imagine why that friend hadn't come forward at Lobelia's death, but Frodo believed it was the best course of action. With Thimula's permission and assistance, he went through Lobelia's possessions in her bedroom. He looked over the books on her shelves. Lobelia did not have many--some notebooks full of recipes, one or two books of poetry that Otho had apparently given her when they were courting.

He paid special attention to her correspondence, which was stored neatly in an old writing desk. These letters went back over many years. Lobelia had kept many mementoes of her late husband and son; every letter either had written her, beginning with Otho's letters to her during their courtship and ending with Lotho's last letters when he'd gone away on business to his pipeweed plantation in the Southfarthing, seemed to have been saved. Frodo believed that Lobelia had only cared deeply for these two and no one else in her lifetime, and he felt some sympathy for her. How bitter and miserable these last few years must have been for the old woman! There were also a few letters from her Bracegirdle relations; Lobelia hadn't bothered to keep copies of her own letters, but by the replies of her relatives, Frodo could tell that he and Bilbo had figured frequently as a topic, and she had not written of them in kindly terms. Among these were letters from Thimula's mother, written when Thimula was a girl. Mother wrote of daughter in glowing terms and often hinted at visits though Thimula had never visited Hobbiton before last year.

While all this cast some interesting light on the character of his aunt-by-marriage, there were few recent letters, and no sign that Lobelia had sent anything to her northern relatives lately. The last letters in the desk were dated five years ago, just after Lotho had died, when Lobelia had moved back to Hardbottle to live among her own family. Frodo looked over the few, brief black-bordered notes of condolence, none of which mentioned the questionable circumstances of Lotho's death. There was nothing that referred to her recent will.

"And Aunt Lobelia mailed no packages or large letters in the months before her death?" he asked Thimula.

"No. I carried all her letters to the post-office myself, since she hadn't felt well enough to go out herself since before Yule. There weren't very many, and all of them short notes. I'm sure there was nothing like a will enclosed."

Sam, meanwhile, had directed his attentions to the kitchen. He looked into every pot and piece of crockery on the shelves, then tested every brick of the stove and stone on the hearth to see if any were loose and concealed a hiding place. He found nothing. They did not stop for luncheon but Sam, with the help of the maidservant, since the cook had been dismissed shortly before Lobelia's death, made sandwiches.

"What about the garden?" Frodo came up with this new idea after having a bite to eat. "Could Aunt Lobelia have hidden something there?"

"It's possible, but I never saw her go out-of-doors after midwinter," answered Thimula. "She was feeling very poorly during these last months and rarely got out of bed. When she felt well enough, she would sit by the fire--here, in her room, or in the kitchen or best parlor, wrapped in her shawl."

"Sam, will you go and have a look?" Frodo requested. "You'd know better than I the signs of a disturbance among the plants or anything else that looks wrong or odd."

Sam consented and was about to go out when there was a knock on the front door. The maid answered it, and showed Tom Cotton in.

Tom regarded Frodo shyly as he entered the bedroom, and his face went red; he had avoided Frodo since last autumn, and their occasional meetings since were always awkward. Taking off his cap, he gave Thimula a bow and "Beg yer pardon, Miss," before bowing his head again in Frodo's general direction. "It's Sam I come after," he explained, and turned to address his brother-in-law. "Sam, Marigold's called Mum up to Bag End and wants you to come home quick as you can."

"Is it Rosie-?"

Tom nodded. "She's near her time."

Sam turned to Frodo. "I've got to go to her," he said apologetically.

"Yes, of course! Go! I'll manage here. Don't think of me--you have other things to think about. I'll have my dinner at Aunt Dora's or the Dragon, so I won't be underfoot." Frodo put a hand on Sam's back to send him toward the door. Tom bowed again, and followed Sam out.

"I can give you dinner here," offered Thimula. "Mimsy leaves after tea-time, but the neighbors have been so kind--there's plenty in the larder."

After Sam had gone, Frodo went out to have a look around the garden by himself, but found the earth hard-packed, with no sign of anything being buried or dug up recently, and no hollows or patches in the fruit trees against the wall. He thought that he might ask Sam to come and have another look in a few days, after the baby had been born and things at Bag End had settled down--if he still hadn't found Lobelia's will by that time.

When he went back into the house, he looked into the other rooms. Thimula had said that Lobelia sometimes sat by the best parlor fire. Could she had left some clue there? No, nothing he could find. The room hadn't been opened for weeks; even the maid hadn't gone in for dusting. On the other hand, the second-best parlor, where Lobelia had been laid out, was spotless but no more revealing.

"What about this room?" asked Frodo, after trying a few more doors, and finding one locked.

"That? It was Lotho's bedroom," Thimula answered once she had come down to the end of the corridor to see which door he was referring to.

"Have you looked in here?"

"No, I've never been inside. It's locked--I mean, Auntie always kept it locked and I don't know where the key is."

Frodo was too much of a gentlehobbit to reproach her for not mentioning Lotho's locked room before, but his expression must have revealed his surprise at this glaring omission, for the young woman blushed and said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Baggins. It was stupid of me, but I never gave it a thought. This end of the house is so rarely used. I don't think I've been so near that door since last autumn. Do you think that's where Auntie's will is?"

"We'll have to find the key and see."

A second search began in Lobelia's room, but by the time they had found it beneath the velvet lining on the lid of Lobelia's jewelry box, the afternoon had drawn in. Frodo tested the key to be sure it was the right one, but since he was still recovering from his bad spell and had eaten nothing but a couple of sandwiches since breakfast, he found he was suddenly feeling tired. He suggested they stop for dinner before they examined Lotho's room for the will. Thimula brought out several covered pots from the cold larder; there was a mutton-and-potato pie from Prunella Proudfoot, some vegetable soup from Peony, and a large apple-and-cheese tart from Mrs. Broadbelt. While these were reheated and Thimula put the kettle on for tea, Frodo helped his hostess by setting the kitchen table and slicing and buttering bread.

"There's no reason why I couldn't go to the market," Thimula said once they were sitting down for their meal, "but since Auntie died there was so much to see to, and whenever someone stopped in for a viewing or to express their sympathies, they brought something to eat. We have three kinds of cake for dessert. I'm grateful that Mimsy's stayed on to help me keep house. We've always had difficulty keeping servants here. Mrs. Tiggle, the cook, left two weeks before Auntie passed on. I don't know why. She and Auntie seemed to get on well enough. She'd worked for Auntie before--before Lotho died and she came north to live with us."

"May I ask a rather personal question?" requested Frodo. "When did Aunt Lobelia first speak of making you her heir?"

"Soon after she came to Hardbottle," Thimula replied. "She was utterly bereaved, and perhaps not in her right mind at first, for she spoke often of Lotho as if he were still alive, but gone far away. We'd heard little of what had happened to him up Hardbottle-way, but enough to know it was best not to question her about his death. It was then that Auntie first began to say she had always meant me to wed Lotho."

"Did she?" Frodo recalled that Lobelia had made such a claim last autumn, but he'd doubted it then, and still doubted now.

"She'd never spoken of it before that. My mother would have liked it, for they were good friends when they were girls, but I don't believe Auntie had a thought for it when Lotho was living. I had no dowry, you see."

Frodo nodded. "Aunt Lobelia would've preferred to find an heiress for her son. You've met my cousin Angelica?" Angelica promised to be the wealthiest young lady in this part of the Shire, for she was not only her parents' only child, but would inherit the property of her childless aunt and uncle who doted on her, and some portion of Aunt Dora's considerable fortune as well.

"The very pretty one who's married to the Mayor's son?" asked Thimula. "Yes, I've seen her at your aunt's house with her children. Auntie wanted a match between her and Lotho?"

"She once had an idea of it, but Angelica wouldn't have anything to do with Lotho and Lotho wasn't very keen on Angelica. Aunt Dora used to try and push me and Angelica together too, but Angelica had her heart set on Lad Whitfoot. She got precisely what she wanted in the end."

"Lucky girl. But she turned you down too?"

"Well, I wasn't terribly fond of her myself in those days. We've grown to be better friends since."

"I must admit I didn't care much for Lotho," said Thimula, "but if he'd still been alive when Auntie began to speak of me as her daughter-in-law, I would have given him a thought. A plain, poor girl can't be as particular as a beautiful and wealthy one and must catch her husband wherever he comes along, or resign herself to a spinster's life. At least, once we find Auntie's will, I shall avoid living as a poor spinster."

"You mean to stay on in Hobbiton, then?" Frodo asked her.

"If Auntie did leave me this house, yes. I've been happy here. I'll have a home of my own, and I may find a husband yet! Auntie did try to find one for me, you know. Most of the gentlemen near my age have married already, but there was a widower, Mr. Chinhold, whom I might've accepted if he hadn't quarreled with Aunt Lobelia. She never gave up trying, even when she took to her bed. She considered every eligible male in the neighborhood, except for you." She considered him thoughtfully. "Mr. Baggins-"

"Call me Frodo, please," he insisted. "After all, we are neighbors as well as cousins-by-marriage. It seems a bit silly to go on being so formal while we both call the same woman Aunt." Also, after they had spent the day together, he thought they ought to be on more friendly terms now that Lobelia was gone.

Thimula smiled. "Frodo, will you tell me, if it's not too personal--Why did Aunt Lobelia dislike you so much? I know that she wanted your house and felt it should've come to her husband rather than you."

"Yes, that's right. She taught Lotho that he could take whatever he wanted as his natural right, even if it belonged to other people."

"Like your Bag End?"

"That's one example, yes, but it isn't the only one. Lobelia and Lotho had a long history of making such unfounded claims in this part of the Shire. Ask anyone, and they'll tell you one story or another. If they haven't told you before, it's because they're fond of you and know you were fond of Aunt Lobelia."

"She was my only close relation after my mother died," said Thimula. "She took me in. I know she wasn't well-liked here in Hobbiton. Since I came to live here with her, I've begun to understand why. In Hardbottle, Auntie always made it sound as if everyone, the Bagginses, were conspiring against her to cheat her and Lotho out of what they were due. I see now that wasn't so. But is that the only reason she disliked you? No."

"When her umbrella was stolen, she asked me to find it," said Frodo. "I did, but it wasn't all in one piece."

"Her feelings against you seem rather excessive, even over an umbrella," Thimula said with that dry sense of humor Frodo had noted once or twice before. Then she ventured, "There was also something about Lotho's death. Auntie seemed to blame you for it."

"She did," said Frodo. "When Lotho first went missing, she went around saying I had something to do with it. She even went to the shirriffs to have me arrested. I was doing my best to find Lotho, to stop her accusations if for no better reason. I wasn't 'the famous detective' then--it was only the second time I'd investigated any such mystery. Aunt Lobelia had accused me of murder once before, after Uncle Bilbo disappeared."

"He's the uncle who used to own Bag End?"

"Yes, she claimed that I had made away with him once he'd made his will in my favor. I don't think she truly believed it--Uncle Bilbo had adopted me and made me his heir more than ten years before he went away--but she was angry and disappointed, and wanted to make trouble for me."

"Did she believe what she said about Lotho?"

Frodo shook his head. "I couldn't say. There is more," he admitted. How much could he tell her? Would she understand the terrible bargain Lotho had made with Saruman, and what disaster might have befallen the Shire because of it? Could any hobbit who had never seen Isengard imagine it? He and his friends had long ago decided that the secret was better kept among themselves. "Do you know how Lotho died?" he asked.

"I've heard the gossip," Thimula answered. "I know he drowned himself in a marsh. And there was something about a girl who had also died..."

"Her name was Daisy Puddlesby," said Frodo. "She was a farmer's daughter. Lotho wanted to marry her, but Aunt Lobelia wouldn't hear of it. When Lotho first disappeared from Hobbiton, I thought that he'd run off to Daisy. Then she was found strangled in a lane near her family's farm." Thimula gave a small gasp of horror. "Her parents said that Lotho had done it, and after Lotho was found in Rushock Bog with a rope tied to a millstone around his neck, that's what everyone else believed too. They still do."

"Did he do it?" asked Thimula.

"No," Frodo told her. "I didn't believe so even then, and I told Aunt Lobelia I would clear Lotho's name if I could. But in the end that wasn't possible. That's what she couldn't forgive me for, that her son is still regarded as a murderer."

Thimula was silent for several minutes as she finished her soup. Then she said, "Yes, I see now why she always said you were a poor detective. Who did kill the girl? Did you find out?"

Frodo nodded. "But I can't tell you. They're dead now too."

---

After dinner, Thimula was cleared the table and sent Frodo to explore Lotho's room. "Thank you, but I didn't ask you to come here to scrub dishes," she answered his offer to help with the washing up.

The feather-bed in Lotho's room had been rolled up against the headboard and the grate was clean of ashes and soot, but everything else remained in its place as if its occupant hadn't been dead for years. Lobelia must have been in here since Lotho's death, and surely since her return to Hobbiton, for there was little dust and no cobwebs. Lotho had kept a number of strongboxes in his room; when Frodo tried them, he found them all already unlocked--by Lobelia, presumably. If there had been money in them, she must have removed it long ago. The boxes that weren't empty contained Lotho's business correspondence, account books, and other papers related to his pipeweed plantation in the Southfarthing and other properties. If Lobelia hadn't already sold this property or bestowed it elsewhere, it would go to Thimula as part of her inheritance. She would be an extremely wealthy young woman.

Frodo looked through these papers to see if Lobelia had hidden anything among them, but didn't read them as thoroughly as he had read Lobelia's letters. One brief note, the last Lotho had apparently received, was in a large and elegant hand unlike any hobbits' writing Frodo had ever seen--but very like Gandalf's--and said simply, 'We have arrived. Come to us.' It was unsigned even by an S rune, but Frodo knew who must have written it, and what the outcome of this cryptic summons had been. He shuddered as he refolded it and put it back into the box.

To his surprise, there was a good collection of fairy-stories on a bookshelf beneath the shuttered window. These, he also looked through quickly. Most seemed to be the type of tale where industrious tailors or dimwitted third- or seventh-born sons went out to seek their fortunes and came into great wealth, kingdoms of their own, and princesses to wed through unexpected luck or magical gifts. His own boyhood reading had consisted of the same stories, but he wondered if his cousin had taken away different lessons from them than he had.

As he turned through the pages of one book, a tiny tin key fell out from between the pages. Frodo picked up it; after testing it in the locks of the opened strongboxes and looking under the bed and in the wardrobe to be sure there were no other box he'd missed earlier, he took it to the kitchen to show Thimula. "Here--do you know what this opens?"

"Why no..." Thimula took it from him to examine it. "It's much too small to fit any door. It's not a spare to Auntie's jewelry-box, and we've opened that already." She took a householder's ring of keys from her skirt pocket and compared the one Frodo had found with every key on it. None matched.

It was well after dark when Frodo said goodnight to Thimula, with a promise to return and resume his search in the morning. He walked around the foot of the Hill and up the lane to Bag End. As he approached the house, he saw the flicker of a match being struck in the garden and in the dim light from within Bag End perceived a shape near the front door. Sam was sitting on the bench, smoking his pipe.

"How is Rosie?" Frodo asked as he came up the steps.

"She had an awful hard time of it, but she's sleeping now," Sam reported. "Mother Cotton says she'll be all right if she rests abed for a few days. She 'n' Marigold're staying over tonight to look after the little ones. I gave 'em the room across from us 'n' the nursery, where they always sleep when they stop the night."

"And the new baby? Is it a boy or girl?"

"Both. That is, one o' each."

"Pippin and Rosemary!" Frodo recalled the names Sam and Rosie had picked out. "Sam, how delightful! But poor Rosie--no wonder she had a hard time."

"Mother Cotton said she wondered if Rosie wasn't big enough to be carrying twins, but didn't like to say so before time in case she was wrong. They're tiny mites, Frodo. Bright pink and wrinkled like new baby mice. All babies look like that the first week or so. You'd never've thought Nel was going to be so pretty, not from the way she looked the first time I saw her." Sam drew in on his pipe and let out a puff of smoke. "You wasn't at the Dragon. Tom 'n' me went down for an ale and to tell the news after the babies came. The womenfolk pushed us out o' the house after we'd had a look at the new little uns and I saw Rosie was all right. I looked for you, but didn't see you anywhere."

"I didn't go after all. I had dinner with Miss Bracegirdle instead and we went on looking for Aunt Lobelia's will. I've found something that may be an important clue to its whereabouts: a key..." Frodo took it from his waistcoat pocket and held it up, even though the light was too dim for Sam to see. "So you and Tom have made it up?"

"He was never so bad as Nibs 'n' Jolly," Sam conceded. "I think he's really sorry for what he told 'em about you and me. He still doesn't know what to make of it, but he can see me 'n' Rose are that devoted to each other and you haven't come between us. He's gone down to Number 3 so the Gaffer'll hear about the babies and won't be alone. I haven't gone back inside yet. It's a bit cold, but a fine night." He stretched himself, his arms reaching along the back of the bench on either side.

"Yes, it is." Frodo sat down beside his friend and took the pipe, which Sam held loosely on his chest, to take a puff or two. His own pipe was in his room, and he didn't feel like going into the house to get it. As he nestled closer, Sam let one arm drop from the back of the bench to put it around him.

For a little while, they sat companionably together in the darkness, sharing the pipe, talking little. Then Frodo began to feel the inevitable weariness after his day's efforts settling upon him, and the chill of the spring night stealing into his bones. He shut his eyes and rested his head on Sam's shoulder. The thought of a blazing fire and the comfort of his bed began to be appealing.

"I ought to be going in. Will you come to my room tonight?" he invited Sam. "Rosie certainly mustn't be disturbed after the day she's been through."

"You know I'd like to," said Sam, "only Mother Cotton or Marigold's going to be sitting up with Rosie and the babies through the night. It's best they don't see anything they'll take home, and start all that trouble up again."

Frodo made an emphatic sound of agreement. If things had settled between Bag End and the Cottons, he was no more eager to revive their suspicions than Sam was. "Very well then. Goodnight, my love." Frodo lifted his head to give Sam a kiss, then he rose and went into the house.

Frodo, not wishing to be underfoot the next morning while Sam and Marigold were feeding the older children and making up trays for Rosie and her mother, waited until the kitchen was quiet, then emerged to have his own breakfast. Sam was gone, but Marigold was still sitting at the table, looking rather weary after spending half the night sitting beside Rose's bed. When Frodo came in, she lifted her head from her arms and gave him a shy smile, as if in apology for having his house overrun by Cottons and Gamgees. Rose was doing well, she informed Frodo; Sam was in having breakfast with her and Mother Cotton now. The little uns had eaten all the toast and jam, but there was a fresh pot of tea just made if Mr. Frodo didn't mind sharing it with her. No, Frodo didn't mind. He found a couple of currant buns in the pantry, nibbled on those while he drank his tea, then left Bag End to go down the Hill to the Sackville-Baggins house.

"Could there be any secret hidey-holes in this house?" he asked Thimula. "What other places might Aunt Lobelia have hidden another box with the will inside?"

Thimula shook her head. "I've gone over it a hundred times, Frodo, and can think of no place we haven't already looked. But something did occur to me in the night. What was the book you found the key in? Could that be important?"

Frodo agreed that it might. They went to Lotho's room and he located the last book he had picked up the night before; it was set atop a stack of others in a small pile on the floor. "Yes, it was this one." He opened it. "There's nothing else between the pages. No writing that shouldn't be there." Lotho's name was inscribed on the inside of the front cover, but Lobelia had added no notes on the margins nor on the blank sides of the illustrations. Frodo next glanced over the text. "It's a tale about a poor widow with a simple-minded son who owns a goose, if that matters. Perhaps it does."

"Did the goose lay golden eggs?" asked Thimula.

"No, that's another story. In this one, the mother sends the lad to market to sell the goose. On his way, the lad inadvertently insults an old witch, and she puts a curse on the goose, so that whoever touches its tail-feathers sticks."

"How very strange!"

Frodo recalled reading this same story as a child, but he sat on the floor with Thimula beside him as he recounted the rest of the tale and turned through the pages to show her the illustrations. As the lad carried the goose to market, he picked up all sorts of people who couldn't resist touching the goose's tail, or who seized their friends in an effort to help them escape and wound up being stuck themselves: a tailor, a pretty girl and her mother, the town's mayor. Eventually, a long train followed the youth, who remained oblivious to the commotion going on behind him. In the end, everyone was freed from the curse in exchange for promises. The simpleton went home with a new suit, bags of gold, a bride, and the Mayor's chain of office. Typical of Lobelia, thought Frodo, to bring her son up on stories of undeserved rewards.

Thimula had been laughing at the absurd tale and the accompanying pictures, when she suddenly stopped and sat bolt upright. "Oh my gracious! The goose!"

"The goose?"

"Auntie had a hideous, huge pottery goose that used to sit on the kitchen cupboard. She brought it back with her from Hardbottle. She once told me that Lotho gave it to her on his birthday. It was hollow inside. The top came off. Frodo, I'm sure that's where she hid her will."

"Where is it now?" Frodo asked.

"I don't know. It disappeared a week or two before she died." Leaving Lotho's room, Thimula went to the kitchen and pointed to an empty space on the top shelf of the cupboard.

Frodo gazed up at the empty spot, and had an idea. "Do you recall when you first noticed the goose had gone?" he asked. "Was it before or after Aunt Lobelia dismissed the cook?"

"The cook?" Thimula echoed. "Before, I think."

"Not long before?"

"I couldn't say. I believe both happened in same week, but I really didn't notice. If I gave the missing goose any thought at the time, it was only that I was happy to see it gone. I'd assumed it must've fallen down and broken into pieces."

"Well, it is possible the cook did break it and Aunt Lobelia dismissed her for that," said Frodo, "but I think that Aunt Lobelia would've had something to say if an object Lotho had given her were broken by a servant. You would've heard quite a lot about it. But the goose disappeared quietly, and the cook departed around the same time. You said last night that she and Aunt Lobelia had been on good terms, and had known each other for years. What if Aunt Lobelia gave it to her? Where she is now, and does she have it with her still?"

It took the rest of the day to trace Mrs. Tiggle's whereabouts. Thimula recalled that the cook had lived in Overhill, and both she and Frodo hoped that if Mrs. Tiggle wasn't still there, her family or neighbors could tell them where she'd gone. When they located the cottage in the village to the north of the Hill, they learned that Mrs. Tiggle had taken another job--a good cook could always find work if she wanted it--but her daughter, who was still living there, provided an address in Frogmorton, ten miles away. That was too far for the older woman to travel back and forth every day, so she was living at her employer's house.

The pottery goose? Yes, Mrs. Tiggle's daughter had seen it; her mother had brought it home with her from Mrs. Sackville-Baggins's one day. No, it wasn't here. Mother had taken it with her to Frogmorton.

After they'd thanked Miss Tiggle and gone on their way, Frodo sighed. "We will have to go to Frogmorton."

"Won't it tire you, Frodo?" asked Thimula. "I know you've been ill lately."

"No, not at all. We can ride there by midday. I'll just fetch the ponies from the stable and tell Sam I won't be home until this afternoon. He's probably so busy with the new babies and three other little children to look after, he hasn't noticed yet that I've been out of the house ."

"Three children? But I thought the Gamgees had only two--the little girl and a baby boy."

"They do, but Sam's sister Marigold is staying at Bag End now, and brought her baby with her. The nursery is quite full."

"You're extremely generous to the Gamgees," Thimula spoke after a moment--Frodo thought with a certain tentative delicacy. "Everyone says so."

"So they do," he answered carefully.

"Aunt Lobelia had her own way of speaking of it."

"About my friendship with Sam Gamgee, you mean?" He wondered how much local gossip Thimula had heard. Since his affair with Merry Brandybuck was common knowledge, his Hobbiton relatives and neighbors had reconsidered his close friendship with Sam. They seemed to assume that his remarkable generosity to Sam must spring from whatever had been between them before Sam's marriage. While his cousin Angelica thought it noble and fine of him, others, like the Cottons and Lobelia, viewed it as a more sordid affair.

After spending most of yesterday in each others' company, he and Thimula had become friendly, but they weren't yet so intimate that he was ready to reveal his secrets. He could, however, give her some part of the truth.

"Sam is my dearest friend," he told her. "We've traveled halfway across Middle-earth together on adventures I'll tell you about someday, and experienced... some things I couldn't possibly describe to anyone. He's saved my life so many times I can't tell you--I've lost count. Why shouldn't I want to do everything I can for him?"

"Why indeed?" said Thimula, and pressed no further on the subject.

The house where Mrs. Tiggle was working was on the far outskirts of Frogmorton, but on the Great East Road and not difficult to find. Rather than knock at the front door and trouble the cook's new employers with a call from two strangers, Frodo and Thimula went around to the kitchen. Mrs. Tiggle was most likely to be working there at this hour of the day.

Mrs. Tiggle had in fact just sent the luncheon joint and soup tureen into the dining-room before she answered the kitchen door. She knew Thimula well, and recognized Frodo as Hobbiton's famous detective and Lobelia's despised nephew even though she had never met him before. She seemed somewhat baffled by their unexpected visit, but welcomed them in.

"You come all this way from Hobbiton after Missus's goose?" she asked incredulously once Thimula had explained their errand. "Missus Lobelia give it me herself. `Twas the last day I was in her service--she said as she didn't have no more use for a cook, as she was too poorly to eat proper but could take in only tea and gruel and broths and such-like, as you could make for her, Miss. Beg pardon, Miss Thimula, but `tis what she said. She said as I'd been a good servant to her, and no hard feelings, and I might have that there goose as sat atop the cupboard as a gift to remember her by. She said as you might come after it one day, Miss, but there's no cause to bring `tectives into it." She cast an uneasy glance in Frodo's direction.

"I'm not here to accuse you of theft," Frodo assured her. "Miss Bracegirdle doesn't wish the goose returned--" Thimula shook her head vigorously in agreement. "If Aunt Lobelia gave it to you, then it is yours to keep. We only wish to see it." He looked around the kitchen, but there was no goose-shaped pottery in sight. "Where is it, please?"

"Well, I don't keep it out here, Mr. Baggins," the cook answered reluctantly. "The girl here as washes up is always a-dropping and breaking the dishes and I wouldn't let her get her hands near sommat breakable o' mine. It's in my room, if you only want to see it..."

Still reluctant, wishing to be helpful but not entirely convinced that they weren't after Lobelia's last gift to her, Mrs. Tiggle showed her guests into a bedroom beyond the pantry. There, sitting on a low chest of drawers, was the goose they'd come so far to find.

Thimula's aesthetic judgment was impeccable; Frodo thought it was the ugliest piece of crockery he'd ever seen. It was nearly life-size and its general shape was copied from nature, but it had been painted in shades of green and orange distinctly unnatural for any living goose. There was also a fierce look in the beady black eyes that made it look as if it were eager to deliver a nasty bite. Only someone like Lobelia could cherish such an object.

There was a small metal plate embedded in the goose's breast and at its center, a tiny keyhole. Frodo took the little tin key from his waistcoat pocket. "May I open it?"

"Open it?" Mrs. Tiggle repeated. "Yes, o' course, Mr. Baggins. So you've got the key? I never knew what became of it."

Frodo tried the key in the lock; it fit and turned easily. Taking the goose by the neck, he lifted the top half off. The bottom half was an oval-shaped bowl, with nothing inside.

"Oh," said Thimula in disappointment. "I was certain the will would be there."

Frodo had felt certain too. Could Lobelia have been playing a deliberate, posthumous trick on him? It wouldn't surprise him if she had gone to such lengths, even on her deathbed, but why would she play such a cruel trick on Thimula as well? Or had she? Perhaps-?

He turned the upper half of the goose, still in his hand, upside down. Lobelia's last trick was revealed: a piece of paper, rolled into a tube, had been stuck up inside the hollow neck. He pulled it out and handed the goose to an amazed Thimula so he could unfurl the paper roll.

Frodo read the first paragraph of the short and simple will:

"In the absence of nearer relations since the death of my only
beloved son, I leave all my property and possessions to Thimula
Bracegirdle, with the following exceptions."

Below was a list of a few items, pieces of jewelry and household furnishings that Lobelia had wished to give to various friends and relatives; Thimula would have to sort these out and see they were sent to the right people. Lobelia had signed her will in a crabbed hand, and beneath her signature were the signatures of seven witnesses, all Bracegirdles of Hardbottle, in red ink. At the bottom of the paper, in fresher and darker black ink, obviously written later, was another message in Lobelia's handwriting. This late addition was unwitnessed, and would have been of doubtful legality even if it weren't spurious for other reasons:

"Frodo Baggins (Lobelia had written)-

"If you can find this, with or without Thimula's assistance,
you may be a better detective than I've credited you to be.
You may make a suitable husband for a deserving girl. It is
my last wish that the rupture in the Baggins family caused
by Bilbo Baggins be closed at last, and I therefore add this
note that of all my rightful property, I leave Bag End to you,
provided you take Thimula as your wife."

As Frodo's eyes went over these words, he began to smile. "I never will understand Aunt Lobelia!"

"Why?" asked Thimula. "What does it say?"

"You're going to be very wealthy," he told her as he handed her the will to see for herself. "She's left you nearly everything she owned. She's left me Bag End, under the condition that I marry you.

Thimula stared at him, as if she thought he was making a joke. As she read the last lines Lobelia had written, her cheeks turned pink. "Auntie must've been desperate to see me married," she said after a moment. "She decided in the end that you weren't so horrible after all. I wonder if that was why she set up this 'wild goose chase' for us--to try and bring us together?"

"I can think of no other reason for it that makes sense," Frodo answered, and regarded her uncertainly. Even if Lobelia had had any rightful claim to Bag End and he might lose his home, he had no intention of marrying to keep it. But how did Thimula feel about Lobelia's matchmaking attempt? She wasn't cherishing any hopes, was she? He'd begun to be fond of Thimula, and didn't want to hurt her feelings. Mrs. Tiggle, who'd been watching them with curiosity since Frodo had opened the goose, now wore a delighted expression, as if she were expecting to witness a proposal.

To his relief, Thimula laughed. "You needn't fear, Frodo. You can keep your home with the Gamgees. If I'm going to buy a husband with my inheritance, it'll be someone else. It's out of Auntie's hands."