Lotho Sackville-Baggins Is Missing by Kathryn Ramage
Summary: The second Frodo Investigates! mystery. When Lotho disappears, Frodo must consider the question: who would be happiest to see the last of Pimple?
Categories: FPS, FPS > Frodo/Sam, FPS > Merry/Pippin, FPS > Pippin/Merry, FPS > Sam/Frodo Characters: Frodo, Merry, Pippin, Sam
Type: Mystery
Warning: None
Challenges: None
Series: Frodo Investigates!
Chapters: 25 Completed: Yes Word count: 40312 Read: 119948 Published: March 22, 2008 Updated: March 22, 2008
Story Notes:
Notes: Like my first mystery, "Death on the Brandywine," this story takes elements from the book, but also uses two key points from the film version or LOTR: the Shire is untouched, and the four main hobbits are all around the same age.

Many of the names used in this story are taken from the Baggins family tree in Appendix C, but the characterizations are mostly my own (again, with apologies to any respectable hobbits whom I've suggested might be involved in Lotho's mysterious disappearance).

This story takes place in the spring of 1420 (S.R.), about six months after the boys have returned from the quest, and begins a week or so after the events in "Death on the Brandywine."

Disclaimer: The characters and overall storyline are certainly not mine. They belong to J.R.R. Tolkien's estate, and I'm just playing with them to entertain myself and anyone else who likes this kind of thing.

December 2004

The Frodo Investigates! series

1. Chapter 1 by Kathryn Ramage

2. Chapter 2 by Kathryn Ramage

3. Chapter 3 by Kathryn Ramage

4. Chapter 4 by Kathryn Ramage

5. Chapter 5 by Kathryn Ramage

6. Chapter 6 by Kathryn Ramage

7. Chapter 7 by Kathryn Ramage

8. Chapter 8 by Kathryn Ramage

9. Chapter 9 by Kathryn Ramage

10. Chapter 10 by Kathryn Ramage

11. Chapter 11 by Kathryn Ramage

12. Chapter 12 by Kathryn Ramage

13. Chapter 13 by Kathryn Ramage

14. Chapter 14 by Kathryn Ramage

15. Chapter 15 by Kathryn Ramage

16. Chapter 16 by Kathryn Ramage

17. Chapter 17 by Kathryn Ramage

18. Chapter 18 by Kathryn Ramage

19. Chapter 19 by Kathryn Ramage

20. Chapter 20 by Kathryn Ramage

21. Chapter 21 by Kathryn Ramage

22. Chapter 22 by Kathryn Ramage

23. Chapter 23 by Kathryn Ramage

24. Chapter 24 by Kathryn Ramage

25. Chapter 25 by Kathryn Ramage

Chapter 1 by Kathryn Ramage
Sam awoke to the faint gray light of early morning stealing in between the curtains on the circular window above the bed in the master bedroom at Bag End. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the familiar image of Frodo's back, turned to him, and a tangle of dark curls spread on the white pillowcase.

A familiar sight... but every morning, it surprised him anew. He'd been living at Bag End for six months, but was not yet used to this new life that Frodo had opened up for him.

When Frodo had invited him to live here, he'd made it clear that Sam was not to be his servant. You can look after me, of course, Frodo had said. I couldn't stop you from doing that even if I wanted to. But that's not why I ask you, Sam--not because I need a nurse, but because you are my friend and dearest love, and I'd be awfully lonely without you. This will be your home as much as mine.

What Frodo hadn't said, but what Sam had come to realize since, was that Frodo intended to bring him up from his natural place in the world and make a gentlehobbit out of him. Other people might assume that they were master and servant, but within this house they would be equals. It was an idea that both of them were still adjusting themselves to, and there were often awkward assumptions and mistakes.

Sam also understood that Frodo was trying to offer him a sort of marriage, even if it was nothing like the ordinary marriages he'd observed. Even among the fine folk, Sam knew that when two people wed, they each had their proper tasks within and outside of the house, in the management of the kitchen, in the handling of household business, and in taking care of the children--and there were always children, at least one or two and perhaps as many as a dozen. But it wasn't like that in this household. In fact, it often seemed to Sam that he had taken on most of the duties of both husband and wife, while Frodo was his child to be fussed over and tended to.

He didn't mind that at all. Frodo was ill and needed special care; he would be well soon if he'd only rest and watch his health. Besides, Sam knew he wouldn't be happy if he didn't have Frodo to look after. Nevertheless, this arrangement was a little odd and difficult for a conventionally-minded hobbit to get used to.

From time to time, Sam imagined what it would be like to have a normal married life. He would never admit this to Frodo, however, even though Frodo had told him that he shouldn't spend his best years tending to an invalid, and it was all right for him to marry a girl who understood the way it was between them. He wouldn't do it. It would look as if he were unhappy with his choice, and he wasn't. Not in the least. He didn't regret any choice he had ever made as far as Frodo was concerned, for he loved him more dearly than he could say.

And yet...

Sometimes, he felt as if there were two Samwise Gamgees: There was the Sam who was a simple, workaday hobbit, content with his lot in life, and who only wanted what any ordinary hobbit wanted--a wife and children, a snug little bungalow to call his own, and a patch of garden to tend. Then there was the other Sam, the one who had grown up listening to old Mr. Bilbo's tales of adventure and yearning to go off and visit the Elves, who wrote poetry and went on quests, and who had fallen in love with his gentleman. The two had been at war within him since childhood, and it looked lately as if the second Sam was winning.

He reached out and tenderly placed his hand on Frodo's back. At the touch, the muscles of Frodo's shoulders contracted and he made a soft sound of surprise. Then he rolled over to flop against Sam.

"I didn't mean to wake you," Sam said as he put an arm around him.

"'s all right," Frodo answered without opening his eyes. "I'm not awake yet." He snuggled drowsily closer, burying his nose in Sam's nightshirt collar and laying one hand lightly on his chest. He was quiet for so long that Sam thought he had fallen back to sleep and was reluctant to move at all lest he wake Frodo again, when Frodo asked, "Are you going to let me get up today?"

"If you're feeling fit enough for it."

The recent family tragedy at Brandy Hall had been a horrible strain on Frodo emotionally as well as physically; he'd been utterly exhausted by the time they'd returned home, and hadn't argued when Sam sent him straight to bed. Frodo had remained meekly compliant all week--staying in bed on his orders, eating whatever food was put before him without the usual protests about not being hungry--but Sam suspected that that was because Frodo was grateful for the enforced rest. He'd slept, and read, and put together his notes for the book he planned to write about their adventures, and only got up to bathe and to join Sam by the parlor fire in the evenings. When Frodo felt well enough, Sam was sure he wouldn't be able to keep him abed a minute longer.

"I am beginning to feel restless lying here all day. It might do me good to be up and about for an hour or two. Besides, it's not fair," Frodo said, teasing now. "You insist I stay in bed, and you won't stay with me."

It was an appealing idea, but Sam replied in the same playful tone, "You wouldn't get much rest if I did! Besides, there's too much work to do for me to stay lying abed. I've got your bath to draw, and breakfast to cook. The best guestroom's got to be made ready if Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin are coming for their visit. And the garden needs tending. With all this rain we've been having, I haven't given it the care it needs. The weeds are starting to come up all over." He glanced up at the window over the bed; the sun had risen, and pinkish streaks of light were coming in through the curtains. It looked as if it were going to be a beautiful day. "I ought to spend the morning putting the flower beds in order. If you want to get up today, Frodo, why don't you come and sit out in the sunshine while I work?"
Chapter 2 by Kathryn Ramage
After breakfast, when Sam went out to tend the garden, Frodo got dressed and went with him. Frodo offered to help pull up the weeds, but Sam wouldn't hear of it; Frodo might be well enough to be up and about, but he was still going to rest. Once he had made Frodo comfortable on the bench by the front door with a shawl around his shoulders and a pipe at hand if he wanted to smoke, Sam turned his attention to the flower beds beneath the sitting-room windows. Frodo settled down to look over the notes about their adventures that he had compiled all week.

"When're you going to start writing?" Sam asked him without looking up from his own work. "It seems to me you've got enough there to begin putting it all down proper."

"I expect I will one day soon," Frodo replied, "but I don't dare to write in Uncle Bilbo's book yet, not 'til I'm sure of how I'm going to tell our tale." Bilbo had given him the Red Book when they'd stopped at Rivendell on their way home; Frodo had studied it, especially the chapter about how Bilbo had first encountered Gollum, played riddles with him, and won the Ring--which was significantly different from the version of the story Frodo had heard from Gandalf--and he had read passages of it out to Sam. There were plenty of blank pages after the end of Bilbo's tale, but Frodo had so far left these untouched. "I want to get Merry's and Pippin's stories written down while they're here," he went on. "I want to include those too. After all, their adventures were as much a part of the quest as ours were."

He had only read a few pages from his notebook, when he heard the creak of the garden gate below swinging open, and he looked down the hillside to see his cousin Lotho Sackville-Baggins--of all people!--coming up the steps toward the house. "We've got company," he murmured, more to himself than to Sam, but Sam looked up as he spoke.

Lotho was not much older than Frodo, but he was a hunched-up hobbit with a gnomish face and perpetually scowling expression that made him appear older than he was. His usual scowl deepened when he saw Frodo seated near the top of the hill.

"So you're out of hiding, I see," he said as he approached. "Your servant's been going around telling everyone that you're too ill to have visitors."

"He is ill," Sam said, rising from the flower bed and wiping the dirt from his hands on his trousers as he came forward in Frodo's defense. "He oughtn't be disturbed."

"This is the first day I've been out of bed in a week," Frodo confirmed, but he could see that Lotho didn't believe it. "What brings you here, Lotho? I thought that that unpleasant business between us was over and done with. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I am still alive and hope to remain so for awhile yet."

Frodo had first returned home last autumn while the Sackville-Bagginses were in the process of declaring him dead so that they could claim Bag End as their own property. Lotho and his mother Lobelia had just been preparing to move into the house against the protests of other members of the Baggins family, as well as the Gaffer, who was looking after the place in Frodo's absence and had not given up hope of his and Sam's return; when Frodo had turned up, adequately proving himself not dead and reclaiming his home, it had infuriated Lotho and Lobelia no end. They suspected him of playing some sort of trick to make fools of them, and even threatened him with a lawsuit, although nothing had come of it.

"That's just what I'm here to talk about," said Lotho. "I've come on Mother's behalf. Since she has always desired to live at Bag End, and it's unlikely that she'll outlive a young hobbit like you--even if you aren't well--I thought I'd make you a fair offer for the house."

"Thank you, but I'm not interested," Frodo answered pleasantly. "I like Bag End, and I intend to stay."

"You're just being stubborn and contrary," Lotho persisted. "You don't need a house this size all to yourself. You aren't going to marry, are you? Or bring up a family here. Why don't you go to live with your Brandybuck relations--I'm sure they'll welcome you back, and look after you just as well as your... devoted body-servant." He said this last with a glance at Sam and a sneering note that made the words sound like something else entirely; neither Frodo nor Sam could misunderstand what he was implying.

"Here, you-" Sam came around the bench toward him, scowling dangerously, but stopped when Frodo put a hand on his arm. Frodo's cheeks and the tips of his ears had turned red, but he was determined not to lose his temper. That was what Lotho wanted him to do.

"I don't wish to sell," he repeated. "You've made your offer, Lotho, and it has been refused. You can be on your way."

But Lotho had not finished yet. "This house should have gone to my father by rights," he huffed. "He was Bilbo's nearest kin. It ought to belong to my mother and to me now, not to any Brandybuck interloper."

"If Uncle Bilbo had meant you to have it, he'd have left it to you," Frodo retorted. "But he left it to me."

"And you got rid of him quick enough once he did!"

Frodo ignored this. "It's my property, to do with as I please. Understand this, Lotho: Even if I should die tomorrow, Bag End will not be yours. I've chosen my own heir." His hand was still on Sam's arm, and he gave it a light squeeze as he said, "Everything I own will go to Sam."

Lotho gaped at him. So did Sam, for he hadn't known that Frodo had made any such plans.

"The gardener!" Lotho cried. "You'd put your garden-boy before your own family?"

"Before you, yes," Frodo said. "You have no rights here, Lotho, and you've been as rude to me as you possibly can. Now will you please leave before I have Sam throw you out?"

Sam stepped forward, eager to do it; Lotho danced safely back out of his reach.

"You think you're so important, Frodo Baggins, since you went off on your adventures in the Big Folk's world with your high-and-mighty Took and Brandybuck cousins," he spat. "But we'll see who's the important one around here, and it won't be you. You aren't the only one with powerful friends. You'll be sorry you ever crossed me." And, having had the last word, Lotho turned and left Bag End, slamming the gate behind him.

"Let's hope that's the end of Lotho!" said Frodo. "I would be thoroughly delighted if I never have to deal with the Sackville-Bagginses again." Then he grew more solemn. "Sam," he asked after a moment, "do you think Lotho really knows- ah- anything, or was that remark of his meant as a blind insult?"

"I think he was just saying it to make you angry," Sam answered. "He's heard the gossip, and he's stabbing out to hurt you however he can."

Frodo looked up at him, eyes wide. "Gossip?"

"Well... you know how folk'll talk."

"Yes, but I didn't know that they were talking about us."

Frodo didn't go out to the Green Dragon or the Bywater market often these days, so he didn't hear it, but Sam knew what sort of stories were being whispered since he and Frodo had set up house together. He didn't mind so much for himself--it was only the truth, after all--but he didn't want Frodo upset by any hint of a scandal. "I wouldn't let it trouble you," he tried to put Frodo's worries to rest. "But you shouldn't ought to've told Mr. Lotho what you did about leaving me everything you own. You don't really mean to do it, do you?"

"Yes, of course! I've been thinking about it for awhile now. Ever since-" Frodo paused. "After I had my last bad turn, I thought I should settle matters properly in case anything happened to me."

"Nothing'll happen to you," Sam protested, disturbed that Frodo was thinking about such things. He hated when Frodo talked like this, as if he didn't expect to live long. "You'll be well again soon, and live years and years."

"Just in case," Frodo repeated. He took Sam's hand in his, and squeezed the fingers. "I want to be sure that you're taken care of. What's mine is yours. Haven't I said so?"

"You've said so, and you've done so." It was one of things Sam had not gotten used to: right after he'd moved in, Frodo had told him to take whatever money he needed for household expenses or personal use, but Sam couldn't help feeling that he was taking an enormous liberty every time he opened the strongbox. He was always careful to keep account of whatever he spent, and used considerably less for personal matters than he would have if he'd been paid his old gardener's wages. "But it's nonsense to talk about giving me Bag End. Begging your pardon, but Mr. Lotho's right about that. It ought to be kept in your family. Not left to him and Mrs. Lobelia, of course, but one of the other Bagginses you like better. That's what's fitting."

"Don't be silly, Sam. You are closer to me than anyone, even the Bagginses I like," Frodo insisted. He brought Sam's hand to his lips, kissed the back, and rested his cheek on it. "That's fitting, and never mind what Lotho or anyone else says about it."

They could still see Lotho retreating swiftly up the lane in the direction of Hobbiton; together, they watched until he went around the green curve of the hill and was out of sight. That was the last they saw of him.
Chapter 3 by Kathryn Ramage
A few days later, while the two hobbits were at second breakfast, there was a knock at the front door.

Frodo looked up from his half-finished plate of bacon and eggs. "Surely it couldn't be Merry and Pippin? I wasn't expecting them 'til this afternoon."

"It'd be just like them to come early," Sam answered as he got up from the kitchen table.

But when he answered the door, he found, not Merry and Pippin, but one of the local sherriffs, Robin Smallburrows, waiting outside. Robin was holding his feathered cap--the badge of his office--in his hands and twisting it nervously, but he looked relieved when he saw Sam, for the two had been friends from childhood.

"G'morning, Sam. I'd like to speak to Mr. Frodo, please, if you don't mind."

As long as Frodo was ill, Sam did mind his being bothered without good reason. "What's this about, Robin?" he asked.

"It's his cousin, Mr. Lotho Sackville-Baggins. He's gone missing."

"Missing?" said Sam, and from immediately behind him came an echo: "Lotho's missing?" He turned to find that Frodo had come to the doorway between the sitting room and front hall.

"That's right, Mr. Baggins," Robin answered. "It seems he went out of Hobbiton this Trewsday past, and no one's seen 'm since." He looked up and down Frodo, who was still in his nightshirt and dressing-gown, and added apologetically, "I didn't wish to disturb you. I know you've been poorly, and wouldn't've come if it wasn't important-"

"It's quite all right, Sherriff," Frodo assured him. "Please, come in." He gestured for Sam to admit Robin to the house, then turned and went into the sitting room. "How can I help you?" he asked as he took a chair; he would have invited Robin to have a seat as well, but knew that the sherriff would think it an impertinence to sit down with a gentlehobbit while performing his official duties.

"We're talking to everyone who'd seen Mr. Lotho just before he went off," Robin explained, continuing to twist his cap in his hands as he spoke. "Now, he came here visiting that day, didn't he, Mr. Baggins?"

"Yes, that's right."

"And he didn't say where he might be off to afterwards?"

"No, I'm afraid not. We didn't part on friendly terms."

Robin nodded, and looked even more nervous. "You had a quarrel."

Sam bristled, but Frodo answered calmly, "Yes, there was a quarrel--over this house, as a matter of fact. It's no secret that the Sackville-Bagginses have coveted Bag End since Uncle Bilbo's day. While I was away last year, Lotho and his mother thought that the house would be theirs at last, but since I've come home, they've been disappointed again. They still have some idea that they've been cheated out of property that's rightfully mine."

"Is that what Mr. Lotho came to talk to you about?" asked Robin.

"He came to make an offer to buy Bag End. I told him I didn't care to sell it, and he refused to accept my answer."

"Now who told you about that quarrel, Robin?" Sam demanded.

Robin was acutely embarrassed; his ears were bright pink and his cap had been crushed. "It was Mrs. Sackville-Baggins," he admitted.

"Aunt Lobelia!" Frodo cried. To Sam, he added, "I'm not in the least surprised," then turned back to Robin to ask, "What did she tell you?"

"I'm very sorry to repeat it to you, Mr. Baggins," Robin answered reluctantly, "but when we asked Mrs. Lobelia if she had any idea of her son's whereabouts, she said that if anything'd happened to him, we should look to you."

Sam let out a yelp of disgust.

Frodo was likewise sickened by this slander against him, but he was determined not to take his anger out on the hapless sherriff. "I give you my word I had nothing to do with Lotho's disappearance," he told Robin. "There were some harsh words spoken between us, but we didn't come to blows. Lotho was angry when he departed, but unharmed. I have not seen him since. Sam will confirm what I say."

"It's just as Mr. Frodo says," Sam affirmed, although all three were well aware that he would swear to whatever Frodo wanted him to, whether it was true or not.

Robin nodded solemnly. "I'll take you at your word. I hope we won't have to bother you again, Mr. Baggins."

Sam saw Robin to the door, but he was scowling when he returned. "The nerve of it! Mrs. Lobelia practically saying you'd made away with Mr. Lotho! And that Cock-Robin Sherriff Smallburrows coming here to question you-"

"Don't hold it against him, Sam," said Frodo. "Once he heard that I'd quarreled with Lotho, he had to ask me about it. You can't fault him for doing his duty."

"No..." Sam relented grudgingly. "But what about Mrs. Lobelia? She means trouble for you, Frodo."

"I know she does--she always has--but I have no idea where her son's run off to or what's happened to him. I'm not worried about whatever she has to say."

But it was obviously on his mind, for Frodo continued to brood as he returned to the kitchen to finish his breakfast. He remained quiet and thoughtful for the rest of the day, until Merry and Pippin arrived in time for dinner.
Chapter 4 by Kathryn Ramage
Merry and Pippin had been living in Buckland since their return to the Shire. The two had long had a special affection for each other but, as had happened with Sam and Frodo, that feeling had grown more intense during their adventures; alone in the Big Folk's world, separated from all other hobbit-kind, and facing danger and death nearly every day, they had formed a powerful bond of love and loyalty that neither could ever form with anyone else. Reluctant to part once they were home again, they had set up house together in the cottage at Crickhollow, which was on the edge of the Brandybuck property--private enough to let them do as they pleased without worrying about prying neighbors or family interference.

The true nature of their relationship remained a secret for many months. Only certain members of the Brandybuck family were aware of what went on at Crickhollow, and tactfully ignored it. Such things were tacitly acknowledged to happen sometimes between two lads or maids in their tweens, when an especially close friendship became confused with first love, but the young pair always saw reason in the end and separated, settling down to marry like sensible hobbits. Most of the Brandybucks were content to wait until the boys grew out of their odd infatuation. Only Merry's father, Saradoc, the Master of Brandy Hall, attempted to hasten things to an end by trying to find a suitable girl for Merry to wed.

The family secret became a public scandal a few weeks ago, following the death of Merry's cousin Berilac. Merry had quarreled with his father just before Berilac's death, and Saradoc had allowed Merry to be arrested for murder as punishment for refusing to give Pippin up.

Merry's innocence was eventually established, thanks to Frodo's and Sam's investigation on his behalf, but relations with his father and family were still strained. Everyone in the vicinity of Brandy Hall was aware that he and Pippin were lovers now, and the secluded Crickhollow cottage no longer seemed quite so private. On Frodo's invitation, they had come to stay at Bag End for an indefinite visit.

To welcome the guests, Sam not only prepared a larger-than-usual dinner, but had set the table in the rarely used dining room. He and Frodo normally had their meals in the kitchen. Over dinner, Merry and Pippin related what had happened at Brandy Hall since the other two had left it.

"Mother sends you her love," Merry told Frodo. "So do the aunties. They're all sorry you couldn't stay on at the Hall a little longer. Oh, and Melilot's leaving."

"Leaving?" asked Frodo.

"She's going to marry Everard Took. You know they've had an understanding since they were children, and after everything that's happened... well, Melly's finally made up her mind. I expect she wants to get away as much as we do, for her own reasons. She wrote to Everard, and he's come up to Buckland to see her and settle matters. She's going back to Tuckborough with him, and they'll marry in September."

"We thought we'd stay here 'til then," said Pippin, "and then go to attend the wedding. You'll come too, won't you, Frodo? They'd be so glad to see you."

"Yes, I'll go with you," Frodo agreed. "And where do you plan to go after that?"

"After that, who knows?" Merry answered. "We may stay on in Tuckborough awhile, if we're welcome there."

"My father's not taking the news about me 'n' Merry any better than Uncle Saradoc did," said Pippin. "He hasn't given up hope that we'll stop this nonsense and get married--to girls, I mean. You're lucky you don't have a father, Frodo-" Merry kicked him under the table, but Pippin continued undeterred, "There's no one to disapprove of you and Sam. I don't suppose the Gaffer knows, does he?"

Sam shook his head. At least, his father hadn't said anything when he'd moved into Bag End, except that he mind his manners, do his job, and not forget his proper place.

"Fatty Bolger's invited us to visit him at Budgeford," Pippin went on. "I wouldn't mind it, but..." He glanced at Merry.

"Estella's there," Merry explained. "You know why I'd rather not see her just now." The quarrel with his father had come to a head when Saradoc tried to arrange a match between Merry and Fatty's younger sister. The most awkward part of it from Merry's point of view was that the girl was sweet on him and wouldn't mind getting married; the only graceful thing he could do was try to stay out of her sight until she was over it and had found some other boy who shared her feelings. "If there's nowhere else, we may just go back to Gondor."

"You were talking like that in the Newbury gaol," Frodo said with a note of concern.

"It still doesn't seem like so bad an idea," Merry replied. "I expect we'll do it one of these days, when the Shire's had enough of us and we've had our fill of the Shire." He sighed and picked up his wine glass to swirl the remaining wine thoughtfully. "Sometimes, I can hardly believe that we ever had a place in the Big Folk's world, that we fought alongside them. That we were smarter and braver than anybody suspected."

"Including us!" Pippin piped in.

"Including us," Merry agreed. "We were mostly fighting to defend the Shire and keep it from becoming like the places we saw out there, where evil had come in and ruined it. We did keep the Shire safe, and they don't even know. No one here knows a thing about the war. It'd be so easy for us to fall back into this safe, comfortable life too, and forget that we were ever anything else. I don't want to forget." He finished his wine and, as he set down the empty glass, turned to Frodo. "You've heard enough of our troubles--What's troubling you, Frodo? Something's on your mind. I can see it."

Pippin nodded in agreement. "You've barely said a word since we came in."

"You haven't given him much of a chance," Sam pointed out.

"But what's wrong?" asked Merry. "You're not still upset over- well- how it all ended at the Hall, are you?"

"Yes, I am," admitted Frodo, "but if I'm worried today, it isn't because of that. We have a new problem to think of. Lotho's gone."

"Pimple gone?" cried Pippin. "Gone where?"

"We don't know," said Frodo. "No one does."

"But why on earth should you care?" Merry asked. "I'd think you'd be relieved to see the last of him."

"I might be, if I weren't suspected of having something to do with his disappearance." Frodo related the full story of the argument with Lotho and the shirriff's visit to his astonished cousins as they finished their dinner.

"But you can't leave things like this," Merry said after the table had been cleared and the hobbits had gone into the parlor to smoke.

"What else can I do?" Frodo slumped down on the settee and lit his pipe. Sam went to make up the fire.

"Why not you look into it yourself?" Merry suggested.

Frodo sat up a little straighter. "You mean, I should find out where Pimple's gone?"

"It's in your own best interests. You can't have this dark cloud hanging over you. Half of Hobbiton would be overjoyed if he never comes back, but as long as his mother's around to make a fuss, we'll never hear the end of it. If Pimple doesn't turn up, you know it's just a matter of time before she starts publicly making accusations against you and calling for your arrest."

"Lobelia's just the sort of vicious old biddy who'd do it," said Pippin. "She'll tell any hurtful tale she can whether she believes it or not."

"It's not as if she hasn't done it before," Merry continued. "You remember, Frodo, after Uncle Bilbo disappeared, how she went around saying that you and Gandalf had done away with him?"

"I remember," said Frodo. "If she does it again, I'll do just what I did the last time: ignore it. I don't think the sherriffs will arrest me no matter how loudly Lobelia screams. The worst she can do is lay a complaint against me. If a sherriff comes to question me again, I will simply tell them the truth: I don't know where Lotho is. And if Lobelia comes around here and makes a nuisance of herself, Sam will throw her off the property."

All four hobbits laughed, and Frodo went on, "No, we can't toss an old lady over the garden hedge, no matter how obnoxious she is. Sam, if my Aunt Lobelia comes here, you are not to allow her past the front door. Tell her I am too ill to receive visitors. If she won't leave, you may show her firmly to the gate."

"Then you won't do anything?" asked Pippin.

Frodo shook his head. "Even if Lobelia were a danger to me, I couldn't investigate her son's disappearance. Sam wouldn't let me." He smiled at Sam, who was nodding solemnly in affirmation. "I'm not up to running around Hobbiton and looking into mysterious happenings."

"You don't have to run about," Merry offered. "We'll do it. Sam will help too--won't you, Sam?"

"You could figure this puzzle out without leaving Bag End," Pippin added.

Frodo laughed. "What extraordinary faith the two of you have in my intelligence! Especially after..." he sombered quickly, "after the last time I stuck my nose in where it didn't belong."

"That wasn't your fault, Frodo," Merry said sympathetically. "You were only trying to help me, and you can't blame yourself for what happened afterwards." He went to stand behind Frodo, then hugged him around the shoulders from the back, and kissed the top of his head. "I'm glad you stuck your nose into that mess and got me out of trouble. You can at least do the same for yourself."

"Yes, I suppose you're right," Frodo conceded. "I don't have much of a choice, if I expect to have any peace."
Chapter 5 by Kathryn Ramage
Later that evening, Sam went out to the Green Dragon with Merry and Pippin to pick up gossip. They had discussed their plans, and all agreed that this would be the most effective way to get information. Hobbits loved few things more than talking about their neighbors' comings and goings--and surely all of Hobbiton was talking about this. Why not take advantage of it, and learn as much as they could?

At the Green Dragon, the three soon separated. The tavern was busy that evening, and crowded. They made their way to the bar together, but while Merry and Pippin were obtaining their first half-pints of ale from the maid on duty, a sturdy, dark-curled hobbit at a table in the far corner began to wave eagerly to draw their attention.

"Pip! Merry! Over here!"

It was Milo Burrows, Frodo's first cousin on the Brandybuck side, and therefore a first cousin once-removed to Merry and a more distant cousin to Pippin. He was about 15 years their senior and bore a strong resemblance to Frodo, enough that he might be taken for Frodo's more solidly-built older brother. His wife, Peony, was Frodo's second cousin on the Baggins side. Sitting with Milo was Lad Whitfoot, the Mayor's son, a large and somewhat thick-headed, but good-hearted boy. Since Lad and Milo were old friends, and as good a point as any to begin the evening's work, the two picked up their mugs of ale and went over to join them.

"Hullo!" Milo greeted them. "I haven't seen either of you in awhile. I was so sorry to hear about your recent family tragedy in Buckland, Merry, but I'm glad to see you've come through it all right." If he had heard anything else about the tragedy or its aftermath, Milo did not allude to it. "What brings you lads to Hobbiton?"

"We're visiting Frodo," Merry explained as he and Pippin seated themselves. "You're not usually in this neighborhood yourself."

"I'm here to look at some ponies," said Lad.

"Lad's- ah- helping me pick out a new one," Milo explained. "We're going to take it to the races at Michel Delving in June."

Lad nodded in agreement. "The one Milo had last year wasn't any good--but we'll do better this season!"

Merry and Pippin nodded knowingly. The races were a popular pastime; during the summer months, farmers and gentlehobbits from all over the Shire would bring their best ponies on designated days to run the length of the Michel Delving fairground field. It was not unheard of for wagers to be made over which pony was the fastest. They had been there a few times themselves, though they were not as keen on the sport as some of the other young hobbits. Lad was particularly well known as having a good eye for a swift pony.

"What about you, Milo?" asked Pippin. "Are you here just for the ponies too?" The Burrowses' home was in the Eastfarthing, near Frogmorton.

"Actually, Peony and I are living in Hobbiton now," Milo answered. "We're staying at Aunt Dora's, helping to look after her." Dora, the elder sister of Frodo's father, was the oldest living Baggins apart from the long-absent Bilbo. "She's grown a bit dotty now that she's so advanced in years. Angelica's been staying with her, but the old lady's gotten to be a bit much for the girl to manage by herself, and a pretty girl like our Angelica can't be sitting at home all the time. She's got to have her social life--isn't that right, Laddie?"

Lad blushed and sipped his ale.

"Have you been around Hobbiton long?" Pippin asked both. "What's the latest news? Anything interesting going on?"

"As a matter of fact, we've been having a good bit of excitement here," Lad answered. "Milo and I were just talking about it."

"About what?" Pippin prompted.

"Nothing so horrible as the Brandybucks have suffered," Milo said after a moment's hesitation. "Staying with Frodo, you might've heard already: Lotho's disappeared."

"Yes, we've heard something of it," Merry said disingenuously.

"No one knows what's happened to him," said Lad. "The sherriffs are going about asking all kinds of questions--who saw Pimple last, who's been having quarrels with him, who'd like to be rid of him, and so on."

"We had one at the house this morning." With a glance at Robin Smallburrows, who was seated near the bar, Milo lowered his voice. "They'd heard that Peony and I had had some problems with Lotho."

"Did you want to get rid of him, Milo?" Pippin asked. Merry shot him a sharp look for so obviously pumping for information, but Pippin ignored it. Sometimes, the direct approach was the most effective when you wanted to find things out.

Milo's face went red, but he laughed at the question. "Not badly enough to do anything about it! I wish him no harm, but frankly, I wouldn't mind if he did go away and we never had to hear from him again, for Peony's sake."

"What's he done to Peony?" Pippin went on pumping.

"Oh, it's nothing really," Milo insisted dismissively. "A property dispute over some land up between Needlehole and Nobottle that's been in the Baggins family for ages. Lobelia seems to think it should have gone to her husband and, through him, to Lotho, instead of portioned out to Peony and her brothers after their father died last year. I imagine Frodo has some claim to it as well, but he has no reason to bother himself about a few acres of farmland miles away to the north. He's got Bag End and no children to provide for. We've got our four little ones to think of.

"I thought that the matter had been settled last summer, until Lotho started fussing about it again a couple of months ago. Lobelia may have given up, but Pimple wants that bit of land badly enough to put up a fight for it. He's been sending us letters, making threats of going to law, making a nuisance of himself..."

"What's so special about it?" Merry asked, intrigued.

"Not a thing! It's only recently that I learned- Well, I'd guessed what Lotho wants it for."
Chapter 6 by Kathryn Ramage
Sam, meanwhile, had gone to join Robin Smallburrows once he saw the sherriff seated with Tom and Nibs Cotton. He'd hoped to find Robin here tonight. Robin, like the handful of other sherriffs who were assigned to Hobbiton and Bywater, had an established set of rounds to visit in the towns and at the neighboring houses and farms to see that all was well. Since Robin's rounds ended here at the Green Dragon, he usually stopped for a half-pint or two after he'd finished his duties. It was not remarkable to see him sitting at his favorite table near the end of the bar at this time of the evening.

"Mind if I sit with you lads?" Sam asked.

"Not at all!" In fact, Robin looked quite happy to see him, and pushed out the last empty chair at the table for Sam to sit down. "I thought you was angry with me, Sam. I'm awful sorry I had to come asking questions after Mr. Baggins this morning."

"No hard feelings," Sam replied. If he wanted Robin to tell him anything useful, he couldn't hold a grudge; he needed the sherriff's goodwill and friendship. "You were only doing your duty, as Mr. Frodo said himself. But, look here, Robin--that's just why I've come to speak to you." Sam made no pretense about what he was after. "I mean to be a help to Mr. Frodo. I won't have people going around saying things about him." He frowned seriously, quashing any smiles that might have appeared on his friends' faces. His older brothers and the Cotton boys had teased him about his earnest devotion to his pretty gentleman even before he and Frodo had ever left the Shire, long before there was anything to tease him about. "There won't be any gossip about how he made away with Mr. Lotho."

"You needn't worry for your Mr. Frodo, Sam," Robin assured him. "He's under no suspicion, except by Mrs. Sackville-Baggins. She came around to see the Chief Shirriff this afternoon and wanted to know why we hadn't arrested Mr. Frodo--and she was told there's nothing against him. Plenty of folk saw Mr. Lotho around Hobbiton after your quarrel. That shut her up and sent her off, but I expect she'll be back soon enough if we don't find her son."

Sam was relieved to hear this. "What d'you think happened to him?"

"I'll tell you this much--From what we hear, Mr. Lotho's taken trips away before. Sometimes he's gone for days. Now, it's usual he writes his mother, and this time she's had no word from him."

"Where does he go?"

Robin shook his head. "That, we haven't learned yet, but I'll wager that's where he is now." He leaned over the table toward Sam to impart confidential information. "Besides, Mr. Frodo's not the only one Lotho Sackville-Baggins had a quarrel with lately. Why, the Cottons was just telling me how he'd been behaving himself most ungentleman-like here right at the Dragon that same Trewsday night."

The Cottons both nodded in confirmation. "He must've had more ale'n was good for him, and got into a fight with Mr. Aladell Whitfoot," Tom told Sam, and inclined his head in the direction of the table at the other end of the room, where Lad was sitting with Merry, Pippin, and Milo.

"A fight?" asked Sam.

"They'd've come to blows if we hadn't pulled 'em apart," said Nibs. "Mr. Lad was sitting down at that same table, when Mr. Lotho came over to him. They was talking too softly to be heard, but Mr. Lad must've said something that Mr. Lotho couldn't take--not meaning to, I would guess by the look of him. He was surprised as anybody else-"

"But suddenly Mr. Lotho started shouting," Tom added excitedly, wanting to tell his share of the tale as well.

"He was banging on the table-" Nibs interjected.

"-and when he started climbing over it to get at Mr. Lad, we went to put a stop to things," Tom finished for his brother. "Can't have folk, even those from the fine families, turning our Dragon into a brawling-house where you can't have a sip of ale in peace, or want to see your sister serving at."

"Mr. Lotho stormed out after that," Nibs concluded. "He said the days when folk called him 'Pimple' was over with."

"If you ask me, it looks like he was picking arguments with everybody who'd ever crossed him," said Robin.

"That must be half o' Hobbiton!" Tom laughed.

"He's been quarreling with Mr. Milo Burrows and his Missus," Robin went on, "and he's argued with Ted Sandyman over some business at the mill. Mr. Lotho said Ted had cheated him, and he threatened revenge. He had hard words with the Proudfoots awhile ago, with Old Mr. Odo and his grandson Sancho over a prank of the lad's."

"He's has some words with your dad too," Nibs added, "for sticking up for Mr. Frodo when you were away, and not giving over the keys to Bag End. You know Mr. Lotho never forgave or forgot that."

Sam did know it, but he hadn't known that Lotho was continuing to bother his father about it all these months later.

"I suppose he figured that if he and his mum were in the house when Mr. Frodo returned, they wouldn't have to give it back," said Tom.

The trio's mugs were empty. Although he hadn't finished his own ale, Sam offered to fetch the next round. It was only decent to pay for the information he'd been given. He headed for the bar, but hesitated when he saw that Rosie, Tom's and Nibs' sister, was now tending the taps. She hadn't been there when he'd come in, and he'd hoped she would not be working at the Dragon this evening. He always felt shy and awkward whenever he had to speak to her. He'd never made any promises to her--never once spoken to her as a suitor--but somehow he couldn't help feeling that by choosing to stay with Frodo, he had done her a wrong.

Summoning his nerve, he stepped forward. "Four halves, please," he said, and put the pennies down on the bar.

Rosie scooped up the coins, popped them into her apron pocket, and turned to the huge kegs stacked against the back wall. "We don't see you as much as we used to, Sam Gamgee," she said while she filled the mugs. "Even since you come home from your adventures. The lads missed you, and so did I."

"I've got other things to do these days," Sam answered gruffly, at once apologetic and defensive. "I can't spend my time sitting 'round the Green Dragon anymore."

Rosie nodded. "How's Mr. Frodo? I've heard tell he's been sick abed."

"That's right, and I've got to look after 'm. I'd be there now, only..." He turned to look at his friends at the table, waiting for their ales. He told himself that what he was doing tonight was looking after Frodo--protecting his good name, which was just as important as seeing that Frodo kept warm, well-fed, and rested. Nevertheless, he felt a sudden yearning to return home right away. He'd gotten enough news to take back to Frodo for one night.

"Maybe we'll see more of you once he's well again?" Rosie said hopefully as she set the mugs down on the bar.

"Maybe," Sam mumbled. "Thanks, Rose." He gathered up the four mugs and took them over to the table to distribute to his friends, ignoring the teasing remarks from Tom and Nibs about how long he'd been in conversation with their sister.

Sam set the fourth mug down at the center of the table. "There," he said. "The first one to finish his mug can have that. I've got to be leaving."
Chapter 7 by Kathryn Ramage
When Sam returned to Bag End, Frodo was reclined on the settee before the parlor fire, just as he'd been when they'd left him, with a blanket tucked over his knees and a book open in his lap. He looked up and smiled as Sam came into the room. "I didn't expect you back for at least another hour. Where are Merry and Pippin?"

"Oh, they're still at the pub. But I wanted to come home." Sam had in fact walked very quickly and was breathing a little hard. "I was worried about you, left here alone." And, sitting down at Frodo's feet, he leaned in to kiss him. "I missed you."

Frodo set his book down and, as Sam moved closer, reached up to wrap both arms around his neck. "I missed you too." When Sam kissed him again, more insistently this time, and reached up beneath the blanket to play with the curly hair on his toes, he was surprised, but not unpleased, by the sudden display of affection. Since their return from Buckland, they had slept beside each other, had cuddled and kissed, but had not made love. Sam had been so careful with him during his days of illness, and it was wonderful to be handled with a touch of passion again. "Have we time before Merry and Pip are back?"

"Plenty. Are you feeling up for it?"

"Yes, please!" Frodo shouted out loud in astonished delight when Sam scooped him up, blanket, book, and all, and carried him to the bedroom.

Only after they had spent a steady half-hour making up for lost time did Sam tell Frodo what he'd learned:

"It seems like Mr. Lotho's been getting into no end of quarrels--even fights!--all over Hobbiton. Your cousins, Mr. Milo Burrows and Mrs. Peony, for one. Robin didn't say what they quarreled about, but Mr. Milo was there tonight. Mr. Pippin and Merry was talking with him, and with Mr. Lad Whitfoot too--now, according to Tom and Nibs, he got into an awful row with Lotho the night he went off. I expect you'll hear more when they come in."

As he made his report, Sam rose to wash up; Frodo lay on the bed, watching him, and listened so far without interruption. When Sam paused to splash his face with water, Frodo asked him, "You went to the Green Dragon?"

"Yes, that's right." And Sam knew that Frodo knew it.

"You saw Rosie Cotton too, didn't you?"

"What's that got to do with anything?" Sam lowered the towel he was using to blot his wet face and asked back. He felt a twinge of guilt--but why should he? He hadn't done a thing he ought to feel guilty about.

"Oh, nothing." Frodo lay with his head on the crook of his arm, and regarded Sam pensively. "Who else?"

"Who-?"

"You said Lotho had been in several quarrels lately. Who were the others with? Were there very many of them?"

"Yes, lots." Sam listed the other people Robin had mentioned, and added that Lotho had left Hobbiton mysteriously several times before. "D'you mean to go on investigating this?" he asked when he had finished. "Robin says you're not suspected."

"And I'm happy to hear it," said Frodo, "but I'd like to wait for Merry and Pippin to get in and hear what they have to say before I decide if I want to go on."

Sam pulled his nightshirt on over his head. "You're sure you want to? It'll be hard on you if you do, just like before," he warned Frodo, remembering too well the results of the last time they had gone around conducting an investigation. "I don't mean just your running about, either, but what'll happen if one of your family has a part in Mr. Lotho's disappearing. You know how upset you got when it looked like one of your Brandybuck cousins killed Mr. Berilac."

"Yes, I know," Frodo said. As Sam returned to bed, Frodo sat up and scooted over a little to make room for him, then snuggled back into his arms. "I'll be careful. I promise I won't be drawn so deeply into things this time. After all, it's only Pimple, and we've no proof that he's dead. I rather suspect he isn't. That means that none of my cousins could possibly have done away with him. If it looks like I'm becoming tired or too upset, you'll put a stop to it, won't you?"

"You know I will," Sam told him. "I won't have you falling ill again when you're barely up out of bed."

In response to this dictum, Frodo gave him a soft smile. "You mustn't fret so much over my health, Sam. It's sweet of you, but I'm not as frail as that. I've rested, and I'm feeling much better." The small smile broadened. "If you didn't think so too, you wouldn't have swept me up and made love to me the way you did just now. You wouldn't hold me so tightly if you were really afraid I'd break in half at the slightest touch."

He was delivering a kiss, when they heard the front door open and Merry and Pippin came into the house, shouting, "Frodo, are you up?" Frodo and Sam drew apart quickly, and Frodo scrambled to locate and pull some nightclothes on before there were footsteps in the hall outside, some whispers, and then a tentative tap on the bedroom door.

"It's all right," Frodo called out as he fastened his buttons. "Come in."

His cousins burst into the room, both talking at once in their eagerness:

"Frodo! We've had the most marvelous luck-"

"We've learned all sort of things!"

"You'll never guess who we found at the Dragon. Oh, Sam told you already? Well, you'll never guess what Milo had to say about Pimple."

"Wait 'til you hear-!" Pippin sat down on the foot of the bed.

"Can you give me a minute?" Frodo told them, aware that Sam was pink-faced and embarrassed at being caught in bed with him, even if they were both sitting up and wearing nightshirts. Frodo didn't mind it; he was perfectly at ease with his cousins. They were the only people who truly knew and understood how he and Sam felt about each other--just as he understood them--but they were his cousins, not Sam's, and Sam's sense of intimacy with them was more reserved. Frodo got up and pulled on his dressing-gown. "I want to hear everything, but let's go into the kitchen. We can sit and talk more comfortably there. Besides, I think the two of you are a bit tipsy, and a spot of tea will clear your heads."

They went out to the kitchen. Sam put the kettle on while Merry and Pippin reported to Frodo.

"I don't know much about this land that was left to Peony and her brothers," Frodo said thoughtfully once he had heard the details of the Burrowses' problems with Lotho. "I've heard it talked about before, but I've never seen it. What does Lotho want it for?"

"Ah, now, Milo told us something else quite interesting that might explain that," said Merry. "Pimple and Lobelia haven't been on the best of terms themselves lately. It seems he wanted to marry a girl his mother didn't like. Somebody named Miss Daisy Puddlesby."

"Daisy Puddlesby? I've never heard of her," said Frodo. "Any idea who she is?"

Merry looked at Pippin, and both shook their heads. "It's not a family we know."

"I know the Puddlesbys," Sam told them as he brought the kettle of boiling water over to the table to fill the teapot. "They have a farm outside Needlehole. My brother Halfred lives up that way. Daisy's one of the daughters--the eldest, I think."

"Farmers?" Merry brightened. "Well, that explains a lot! We gathered that Lobelia didn't approve of Miss Puddlesby for marriage to her precious son. According to Milo, she thought the girl was a 'climber'."

"And, being one herself, Lobelia certainly ought to know a climber when she sees one!" Pippin interjected.

"As long as Lobelia holds the purse in that family, Lotho had to let Miss Puddlesby go," Merry went on, "but Milo says that he's heard that Lotho had defied his mother, sort of. He was still seeing this girl right before he disappeared."

"Do you suppose that's where he goes?" Frodo asked Sam, then explained to his cousins: "Sherriff Smallburrows says that Lotho has made a habit of leaving Hobbiton for mysterious trips before this."

"Only this time he didn't write his mother to say where he was," Sam added. "The more I hear of it, the more it seems to me that there's naught that needs investigating here. Most likely, Mr. Lotho's gone off of his own choice, and no harm's come to him."

"Yes, but I don't think that will satisfy Lobelia, unless we can produce Lotho, alive and well," said Frodo. "If she doesn't know where her son is, I'm sure we can rely on her to make a fuss, and make more wild accusations. And I admit I'm rather curious to learn what Lotho's been up to. Whatever it is, he's been planning it for a long time."

"Maybe they eloped?" guessed Pippin. "Milo thought that Pimple was trying to get hold of that land so he could set up a home for himself and this Daisy."

"Perhaps, but that's not where he is now. Would he be fighting so hard for it if he already had use of the place?" Frodo shook his head. "No, there must be something more going on. Oh, I don't say that someone's made off with him. I believe as Sam does, that Lotho's gone away for reasons of his own, but it sounds as if a lot of people would be glad if he stayed away for good. There's no harm in asking them a few questions. We might learn something that will tell us where Lotho is." He looked from one cousin to the other, then to Sam. "Can you speak with some of the people who've quarreled with him--Uncle Odo, Ted Sandyman, and so on? At least, can you speak with Milo again? I'd like to know more about this land that Lotho's so eager to get his hands on. If it's near the Puddlesby farm, that'd tell us we're looking in the right direction."

Pippin laughed. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could find him hiding there, drag him out by his toes, and toss him onto Lobelia's doorstep? That'd settle things nicely."

"If you want to know more about Peony's and Milo's quarrel with Pimple, you can ask them yourself," Merry told Frodo. "We've been invited to tea at Aunt Dora's tomorrow. You were asked to come too, Frodo. That's not 'running about,' is it?" he appealed to Sam.

"I don't see why I shouldn't," said Frodo. "Aunt Dora's house is barely a mile away. It's a pleasant walk on a warm, spring day, and certainly won't tire me." All of this was true, but Sam still looked concerned, and Frodo offered, "Why don't you come along, Sam?"

"Me?"

"Yes, why don't you? You can see for yourself that a tea party won't be too much for poor Frodo," Merry teased. "And you can take him home right away if he shows signs of collapsing over the jam and crumpets."

It was just as Sam had always known: Frodo would only obey him for as long as he wanted to. When he wanted to get up and go out, he would. A short walk to visit his aunt would probably do Frodo no harm. Nevertheless, Sam didn't like the idea of letting Frodo out of his sight for so long. "If you must go, I might as well walk over with you," he conceded reluctantly.

"Then you might as well come inside," Frodo replied. "It's about time for you to be introduced into Hobbiton society. Tea at Aunt Dora's is a good place to begin."
Chapter 8 by Kathryn Ramage
The next morning, Merry stayed in at Bag End with Frodo. The two cousins had not had much time for confidential talk during Frodo's recent visit to Brandy Hall, and Frodo wanted to have a precise account of Merry's adventures in Fangorn and with the Riders of Rohan for his book. Frodo also planned to have Pippin recount his adventures in Gondor, but Pippin had been sent out that morning on a special errand to interview Odo Proudfoot about his 'hard words' with Lotho.

Frodo sat at his desk in the study with one of his notebooks open before him, writing as quickly as he could, while Merry sat close to the fire with his feet up on the fender. He was eating a winter apple as he told his tale.

"Now, the Lady Eowyn... You never got the chance to know her, did you, Frodo?"

"No," answered Frodo, "not well, I'm afraid. We were introduced, of course, and I saw her in the Houses of Healing with her arm in a sling, but I didn't talk with her very much. I know that she spoke highly of you. You fought by her side in the battle at Pelennor Fields."

"I wouldn't have been there at all if it weren't for her. She knew how badly I wanted to go and join the fight, and not be left behind. She wanted it as badly, and disguised herself as one of the men to do it. I sat before her as we rode into battle." Merry bit into his apple. "And when she pulled off her helm and all that long, golden hair came tumbling out..."

Frodo looked up from his notebook, smiling. "Should Pippin be jealous?" he teased.

Merry laughed. "It wasn't like that. She's twice my size! And besides, she was in love with Strider the whole time. We were friends, that's all. We understood each other. I admired her tremendously for her bravery when she faced that Lord of the Black Riders and fought him rather than let him touch King Theoden. She fought as well as any of the men. Better. She killed the winged beast the Rider was mounted upon with one stroke of her sword. I've never seen a woman, Big Folk or hobbit-kind, with that sort of physical courage."

He chomped thoughtfully on his apple while Frodo went on writing. After a few minutes, Merry asked, "Frodo, do you remember there was a terrific scandal when we were children? The Widow Goldworthy?"

Frodo paused in his work. The name was vaguely familiar. "Yes... Your mother and the aunties used to talk about her in whispers. The widow married again--and wasn't it to someone beneath her socially?"

"Her coachman," supplied Merry. "Everyone said he was a climber and only after her money. Her family tried their best to talk her out of it, but marry him she did, in spite of what they said. Some people, like Mother, came around eventually when they saw how happy the two of them were and realized that Mrs. Goldworthy--or whatever her name was afterwards--didn't care if she didn't get invited to all the ladies' tea-parties anymore. But some people never accepted it. It didn't matter to them if the coachman turned out to be a kind and dear husband, or that the two of them loved each other deeply 'til the end of their days. They only saw that it was a step down for her to marry him."

"Yes, I remember. Whatever made you think of her, Merry? The Lady Eowyn and her bravery?"

"No," said Merry, "yours and Sam's."

Frodo put his quill down. "We aren't so very brave. We live here in secret. People know about you and Pippin."

"Yes, but it's different for us. We're cousins. Everyone who knows about me 'n' Pip assumes it's just a silly boys' game that's gone on too long, and sooner or later we'll give it up and do the respectable thing with a pair of suitable girls." He sighed. "We may have to pick out suitable girls sooner or later in any case, to keep the proud names of Took and Brandybuck going--as if there weren't enough Tooks and Brandybucks around the Shire! Our situation isn't the least like the widow's."

"But you think mine is?"

"Well, yes," Merry replied. "People would say the same things about you and Sam as they did about her and her coachman--that you'd disgraced yourself by choosing someone beneath you, or even that you'd seduced a servant. That he was after your money-"

"Merry..." Frodo regarded his cousin with wide eyes. "You don't believe that?"

"No, of course not! I think Sam's marvelous. You couldn't have chosen better. But it's the sort of thing they'd say, and I don't think you'd mind it any more than she did, not as long as you were happy. Sam's just what you want, isn't he?"

"Yes." Frodo gave Merry another, small smile. "He's just what I want, and I don't care what people say. You see how silly the whole idea of 'proper places' is once you've been so far beyond it, as Sam and I have. I don't want us to go back. There is talk about us already, Merry. I'm just beginning to realize how much. Even Lotho made a remark on that day he came here. But it's only rumors so far. Nobody knows." He paused, then confided, "I don't mind it for myself, but sometimes I wonder if I'm being selfish, if I'm not doing what's best for Sam. He could do and be so much more than a nurse-maid to me. I want to show him that, to give him everything I can--but everything I do for him might also place him in an awkward position, exposed to the sort of ugly gossip you were talking about. For example, I've made out my will in his favor."

Merry sat upright, alert at this last piece of information. His mouth moved soundlessly over the word 'will'; Frodo nodded, but refused to meet his cousin's searching gaze as he went on:

"That will make a gentleman of him, beyond question. He'll be Master of Bag End after I'm gone. But can you imagine what people will say? Sam might wish I'd left him a simple gardener, and left him to love someone else."




When Pippin arrived at the Proudfoot cottage, Odo Proudfoot greeted him warmly and welcomed him in, but Odo's wife Prunella was more reserved; she thought that Pippin was a bad influence on her young grandson, Sancho, and brought out the worst in the already-mischievous boy. Pippin thought that Sancho showed a lot of promise without any help from him. The elderly couple had been bringing up their grandson since his parents' deaths when he was very small, and they tended to be both indulgent and overly protective of him.

"Where is Sancho, by the way?" Pippin asked after he had been in the house long enough to notice that the boy was not around.

"He isn't here," said Odo. "We've sent him off to stay with our Brockhole relations for awhile."

"Not because of this business with Lotho Sackville-Baggins?"

"You know about that, Pippin Took?" asked Prunella.

"Oh, yes," Pippin admitted frankly. "All of Hobbiton's talking about it. It sounds as if the shirriffs are asking everyone how they got on with Lotho."

"No one 'got on' with Lotho," Odo answered, "and we're on better terms with him than most, being neighbors as we are. You're quite right, Pip--we sent Sancho away because of Lotho. Sancho got up to some mischief around the Sackville-Baggins house awhile ago, and after what Lotho said to him, we were worried he might do some harm to the lad."

"You mean, Lotho actually threatened him?" asked Pippin, amazed.

"You know how Lotho will spout off," said Odo. "He said that if the boy ever set foot on his property again, he'd be sorry he was ever born. He'd get just what was coming to him--Lotho'd see to that."

"Well, really now-!" Prunella interjected under her breath. "Even if Lotho were only blustering, that's too harsh to stand for."

"There might've been nothing in it," her husband said, "but I didn't like the sound of it all the same myself. I thought it best if Sancho was out of his sight for awhile."

"What on earth did Sancho do to make him so angry?" Pippin wondered. He knew that Sancho was capable of some remarkable stunts. One of the reasons why Merry and Frodo had sent him on this errand alone was because the last time the two of them had seen Sancho, they had tossed the boy bodily out of Bag End; during the confusion the day after Bilbo's birthday party and mysterious disappearance, they had found Sancho digging holes in the pantry, searching for the hidden hoard of Bilbo's legendary dragon's gold.

"I couldn't say," answered Odo. "I only know that the boy had been off around the Sackville-Baggins place that evening--it was weeks ago now. Lobelia was away, and Lotho was home alone. Pru, when did Lobelia go off to visit your relations in Hardbottle?" Prunella, like Lobelia, was a Bracegirdle by birth.

"The first week of April," Mrs. Proudfoot replied. "It's been nearly two months."

"That long?" Odo looked surprised, and a little sad, that Sancho had been away for so many weeks. "Well, Pippin, as I said, it was after dark, and Sancho was late for supper, so I thought he must be up to something! We were just looking out the door for him, when all of a sudden, he comes tearing home fast as his feet could carry him, with Lotho running at his heels, shouting his threats and cursing fit for no decent hobbit to hear. Pru got the lad safely into the house before Lotho could catch him, and I stood firm before the door, and wouldn't let him pass. When I asked what it was all about, Lotho wouldn't tell me, beyond that the boy had been where he shouldn't--'prying and spying' was what he said. Sancho must've seen or heard something that Lotho didn't like, but if he did, Sancho never told us what it was either. The boy was too scared after what Lotho said to open his mouth about it. We sent him to the Brockholes up in Brockenborings, right afterwards. He's been nice and safe there."

"And maybe having to behave himself for the Brockholes will teach the boy a thing or two about making mischief!" Prunella added.

"But, you know, Pru dear," her husband observed, "now that Lotho's gone off, there's no reason why we can't have our Sancho back."




Pippin rushed back to Bag End to report this interesting piece of information. As he entered the house, he heard the murmur of low voices in the study and hesitated before going on, reluctant to interrupt what sounded like a private conversation... although he was also itching to know what Frodo and Merry were talking about.

Venturing quietly toward the study, he could see Frodo seated at his writing-desk, but not writing, and Merry leaning earnestly forward. Pippin only caught a few softly spoken words--

"-haven't you told him?"

"No. I've tried, but it only upsets him. Merry, please don't say-"

--and then Merry looked up find him in the doorway; Frodo turned to see what Merry was looking at.

"Pip!" Merry cried. "Back so soon?"

"You're just in time," said Frodo, and picked up his quill. "Merry's told me his tales. Why don't you give us your news, and then you can tell me all about your adventures in Minas Tirith before lunch."
Chapter 9 by Kathryn Ramage
Sam was also out that morning, for he had his own errands to run. After breakfast, he left Frodo in his cousin's care and went down the hill to Bagshot Row to have a talk with his father.

When Sam came up to the front gate of Number 3, he found his father in the dooryard on his hands and knees. The Gaffer was too old to do heavy gardening work these days, but he wasn't happy if he didn't have some patch of earth to tend.

"Blasted bindweed's worked its way through this whole piece," he told Sam gruffly. "You've got to get on it quick if you don't want it taking over all your garden, and if the wet days hadn't worked so deep into my old bones and made 'em ache, I'd've come to pull it up sooner. Well, I've paid the price--there's twice as much of it to clear off now."

Sam knelt to help him. Father and son worked silently and companionably side by side for several minutes, until the worst of the bindweed had been pulled up and bundled into a large oaken basket to be taken to the rubbish fire.

"I see you been busy putting the gardens up to Bag End back in order," the Gaffer said as he worked with the flat of a spade to pat down the torn-up earth around the young plants. "You do your work proper--I say that for you, Samwise. Not forgetting what you come up to Bag End to do. Looking after Mr. Frodo proper too, are you?"

"I do my best."

His father nodded approvingly. "Now Mr. Frodo, he's a real gentleman. A pleasure to work for, and so was Mr. Bilbo before 'm. Not like some of these that call themselves Baggins, when they aren't."

"You mean the Sackville-Bagginses?" Sam asked, glad to have this opening to bring the subject up.

The Gaffer snorted at the name, and stabbed at a stubborn remainder of the bindweed root.

"Here," said Sam, "why didn't you tell me Mr. Lotho's been at you about not letting 'm into Bag End while we was gone?"

"There wasn't no need. Mr. Lotho wasn't going to get Bag End now that Mr. Frodo's home again, and I didn't want you carrying tales of it to Mr. Frodo. The poor young gent's had enough to trouble him. Feeling better, is he?"

"He's up and about," Sam reported. "Misters Merry and Pippin came for their visit last night, and having them about's done Mr. Frodo some good. They've cheered him up." After a pause, he added, "We're going over to Miss Dora Baggins for tea today."

"'We'?" the Gaffer echoed. "Miss Dora's never asked you to tea?"

"No, but Mr. Frodo wants me to come with him."

The Gaffer shook his head, as if he didn't like this. "You mind your manners when you're there, lad," he said. "I know you'll hold your own with the fine folk--you've been in good company before and won't make me ashamed--but don't be giving yourself airs."

"No, Dad, I won't."

"You've got to watch yourself special 'round fine folk," the Gaffer said as he went on working. "You're getting too many ideas since you went out into the Big Folk's world with Mr. Frodo, and it's best you don't. Now, I don't say Mr. Frodo doesn't mean right by you, Sam--I expect he does--and I know you wouldn't go against whatever he asks of you if it wasn't reasonable. That's only right, but you've got to take care you don't get out of your proper place by it. The next time he wants you to go with him to someplace that's above you, you might remind him, respectful-like, that it isn't fitting--not for him, and not for you. He shouldn't do it. It causes talk."

"Talk?" Sam had heard this sort of advice from his father before, but at this last word, he looked up, suddenly anxious. "What kind of talk? Who's been talking to you?"

"Mr. Lotho, it was. He's said many a wrong thing about Mr. Frodo in his day, but this was something I couldn't stand for."

"What'd he say?" Sam persisted, although he knew what Lotho must have said.

"Never you mind," the Gaffer answered. "'Twas only some gossiping filth." He snorted again, more angrily this time, and slapped the ground with his spade as he grumbled, "Going around sayin' such things about my boy and a gentlehobbit like Mr. Frodo! It oughtn't be allowed. You oughtn't let yourself open to such talk from the likes of Lotho Sackville-Bagginses, Sam."

Sam stared at his father, frozen. He wanted to press on, to ask, 'Did you believe him?' or 'Had you already heard the same gossip from other folk?' but didn't dare. His private life wasn't what he had come here to talk about, and if he asked, it might lead to a conversation he wasn't ready to have. He was certain that the Gaffer didn't know the truth about him and Frodo, and would disapprove of it if he did--not so much because Sam had fallen in love with another boy; it wouldn't be so bad if he were playing around with one of the Cottons or other country lads--but because he had the appalling presumption to love a gentleman. Was there a worse way of showing how far he'd gotten above himself?

Instead, he asked, "What did you do about it?"

"I told him he'd best get out o' my garden, but Mr. Lotho wasn't about to go, not 'til I gave 'm a good push out the gate." The Gaffer lifted his spade and demonstrated with a fierce, upward thrust. "He went quick enough after that! And good riddance!"

The door to the bungalow opened, and Sam's youngest sister Marigold came out to tell Gaffer that his second breakfast was laid on the table for him whenever he was ready to take it. She invited Sam to join them, but he refused. He had another task to accomplish this morning, one he looked forward to less than a visit with his family.

Once he'd made his farewells, Sam went down the lane into Bywater, to the Sandyman mill.




As Sam went into the mill, the constant whirling and creaking and groaning of machinery surrounded him. It was late morning, the busiest time of the day, but even when the millstones were not engaged in grinding wheat and corn, the waterwheel placed where the Rushock stream flowed into Bywater Pool was always turning. Sam was nervous whenever he went near the mill and rarely ventured inside. One of the reasons he and Ted Sandyman never got on was that Sam did not like nor trust complex machinery, while Ted seemed to thrive on its workings. Since he'd been old enough to join his father in the business, Ted had been making what he called "improvements" to the old mill; Sam thought he'd only made it more noisy.

Old Sandyman, the mill owner, was occupied with his foreman over the loading of some large bags of flour onto the cart for delivery, but he smiled when he saw Sam. Sandyman was a longstanding friend of the Gaffer's. "What brings you here, young Sam?" he asked once Sam had come close enough to hear him.

"I'm looking for Ted, if he's not busy."

"Oh, my Ted's always busy." Old Sandyman nodded to indicate his son, who was perched on the edge of a platform above the row of grinding mills; Sam didn't know exactly what Ted was doing, but he thought that the contraption must be broken somehow, for the gears immediately below Ted were not a whirl of motion like the others on either side, and there was a long, wooden pole that came down from the rafters standing askew as if it had been pulled out of place. Ted was scowling into a large, round, wooden tub on the platform that had had its funnel-shaped top removed.

Sam crossed the work floor to stand below the platform. "Here, Ted!" he shouted up to be heard over the noise of the mills. "Ted Sandyman!"

Ted looked down, and grinned. "If it isn't Sam Gamgee!" he shouted back. "What brings you here?"

"I want to talk to you! Can you come down?"

Ted put both hands on the edge of the platform to climb down; he dropped over the edge and hung on for a second, dangling, swinging with his arms outstretched, then landed to stand in front of Sam. "Now, what's this about, Sam? It's not like you to come visiting the mill."

"It's about Lotho Sackville-Baggins," Sam explained, hoping that he wasn't shouting loud enough for everyone in the mill to hear.

"Lotho Sackville-Baggins?" Ted repeated. "Whatever for?"

"I want to know about your quarrel with him. What sort of business was he going in with you?"

"The shirriffs have already asked me about that!" Ted laughed with a jeering note. "You planning on becoming a shirriff, Sam?"

"No," said Sam. "I only want to find out where he's gone. Mr. Frodo's asked me to. He wants to know where his cousin is."

"I wouldn't think he'd care."

"He mightn't," Sam admitted, "only Mrs. Sackville-Baggins's going around saying things against him and we want to put a stop to it." He knew that Ted had no more liking for Lobelia than he did, and this appeal might convince him to help. "You don't know where he is, Ted, do you?"

"I have no idea!" Sam's plea did not have the hoped-for effect, for Ted's face darkened angrily. "If you're hoping to blame me to save your precious Mr. Frodo, it won't work. I don't know a thing about Lotho Sackville-Baggins' whereabouts, and you can't prove otherwise!" Ted stormed off, leaving Sam standing baffled.
Chapter 10 by Kathryn Ramage
At tea-time that afternoon, the four hobbits walked to the ancient Baggins family smial on the far side of Hobbiton. One of the oldest homes in the village, it was officially named Balbo's Pride after the Baggins who had first tunneled into the hillside over 200 years ago, but was more frequently referred to as the Old Baggins Place, or simply the Old Place. This was where Frodo's parents would have made their home if they hadn't been invited to live at Brandy Hall, and where Frodo might have grown up if Aunt Dora had taken him in instead of the Brandybucks.

The hobbits had all dressed in their best. At Frodo's insistence, Sam had taken particular care, bringing out the carefully stored golden-brown velvet coat and brocade waistcoat that had been made for him in Minas Tirith for Aragorn's and the Lady Arwen's wedding. He felt odd being dressed so fancy here in the Shire, but Frodo assured him that he looked very handsome, and every inch a gentleman.

The Burrows children were playing on the grassy slopes atop the Old Place, but they stopped their game and gave excited yelps of welcome when they saw the visitors coming up the lane. The children ran down to greet their older cousins as they came in at the front gate, clinging to legs, tugging on coattails and sleeves, clamoring for hugs and kisses, and the smallest child begging to be picked up. Merry obliged, and carried little Minto to the front door, where Peony stood smiling.

Peony Burrows was a plump, motherly hobbit in her middle-40's, her hair somewhat mussed and the apron tied over her print dress bearing smudges of flour as evidence that she had been baking. "When I heard the commotion outside, I knew it must be you," she said as she removed her youngest from Merry's shoulders, set the child down, and shooed him and his brothers and sister off. "Since Milo told us you were coming, the children have been looking for you all afternoon. I told them you'd play with them after tea." She ushered the boys into the entry hall. "I'm so glad you could come, Frodo. You're looking very well. Aunt Dora's asked after you specially. She says she doesn't see enough of you." If she was surprised to see Sam, Peony did not show it, but greeted him as graciously as the others, then escorted them all down the winding main hallway to the best parlor, where Aunt Dora sat waiting.

"Here's some visitors for you, Auntie!" Peony announced brightly.

Dora was seated in a comfortable chair before the fire with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders and her ash-gray curls tucked neatly under a lace cap. She was knitting, needles moving so briskly that the ball of woolen yarn on the floor beside her workbasket jerked at each twitch of the thread, until at last it rolled away across the hearth. At Peony's words, she looked up, set her knitting down in her lap, and said, "Come in, boys! Please, come in."

"Why don't you lads sit down, and I'll get the tea things," Peony said, and returned to the kitchen.

"Yes, sit down." Dora gestured to the long settee by the parlor window. "Peregrin, Meriadoc--my, how nice you both look! Quite neat and tidy, not like the last time I saw you. Bilbo's birthday party, that was. You'd been playing with rockets like the naughty boys you are, and got yourselves all covered in soot. You looked quite a fright! And how much you lads have grown since then. Here, Frodo, sit by me." The old lady indicated another overstuffed chair on the opposite side of the hearth. "You look quite a picture, as always, dear boy, but you've been very naughty yourself. You don't come to see your old auntie as often as you should. I hope that will change. And..." Dora peered near-sightedly at Sam, who was lingering by the doorway. "I don't believe I know you, lad. You're not one of my nephews, are you?"

"No'm," Sam answered, ducking his head shyly. He was beginning to feel that his father was right; he'd overstepped himself by coming with Frodo. He didn't belong here. It wasn't his place to be sitting in Miss Dora Baggins' best drawing room!

"This is Sam Gamgee," Frodo introduced him. "You know Sam, Auntie Dora. Remember?"

"Gamgee? Not the Gaffer's youngest boy?" She peered at Sam more closely. "Yes, I remember. I've heard a thing or two about you. You're living at Bag End now, aren't you?"

"Yes'm," Sam answered. "I look after Mr. Frodo."

"I'm afraid I haven't been very well lately," Frodo added.

"So I've heard. It's all this traveling to the far-and-wilds on adventures that's ruined your health. Just like Bilbo! He was never the same after he went off, and look how he ended up!"

"Yes, you're quite right, Aunt Dora, and no doubt I'll end up the same way," Frodo replied with good humor. "But in the meantime, I need someone to watch over me--a friend, not a servant--and Sam has kindly agreed to come and stay." Frodo took the chair near his aunt, and urged Sam to sit down as well. Sam took the tuffet beside Frodo's chair.

"Well, I never heard of such a thing," Dora said, shaking her head, "but I daresay you boys have picked up all sorts of odd, new ideas on your travels. I won't call it good nor bad 'til I see how it turns out. I've heard quite a lot about the two of you as well," she told Merry and Pippin. "How you won't settle down and marry like proper lads your age, but will go on playing games and keeping house with each other. Esmeralda must be disappointed, knowing she has no hope of grandchildren any time soon."

"Actually, Mother's taken it rather well," Merry replied cheerfully. "She's too young to be made a grandmother just yet. It's Father who's caused all the trouble."

The door opened as Angelica Baggins came into the room, bringing the tea-tray. She was a very pretty girl with a delicate, heart-shaped face framed by long, flaxen ringlets that were held by blue ribbons that matched her cornflower blue eyes.

"Jelly, hello!" Pippin greeted her. It was a teasing reminder of the nickname the boys had called her during her roly-poly childhood.

Angelica, who had only outgrown her pudginess in her recent tween years, did not appreciate the reminder; she made a face at him--unseen by Aunt Dora--as she set the tray down on the low table by the old lady's chair. "How kind of you to remember, Pippin Took," she said. "It's almost as if we never left the nursery." Arranging her skirts carefully and attractively around herself, the girl knelt beside the table to pour out and fix a cup of tea the way her great-aunt liked it. "And Merry Brandybuck--how nice to see you again."

"Do you see who else is here, Angelica?" Dora prompted.

"Yes, I see. Hello, Frodo." Angelica turned to him with this unenthusiastic greeting and the merest of polite smiles. "Aunt Peony told me you'd come."

"He came specially to see us," said Dora pleasedly. "But you can't imagine it's his old auntie alone that brings him across town."

Frodo didn't understand this remark. It sounded as if Dora was suggesting he was here to see Angelica, but that was plainly nonsense. In the first place, no one had told him that Angelica was at Aunt Dora's. In the second place, he'd never been fond enough of this particular cousin to go out of his way to visit her.

It seemed that his feelings were reciprocated, for the corner of Angelica's mouth turned down at her great-aunt's words, and she did not reply. "Cream, or sugar?" she asked Frodo as she filled a second teacup.

"A little of both, please." When Angelica handed him the cup of tea, Frodo passed it to Sam. The girl lifted her eyebrows at this, and considered Sam with curiosity as she prepared another cup for Frodo.

"And what brings you here?" she asked Pippin and Merry as she gave them their tea. "I know you'd rather be off at one of the taverns. They're just opening their doors at this hour, aren't they?"

"Actually, we're here to ask about Lotho." Pippin took the direct approach again.

"Lotho?" Angelica looked surprised. "What would we have to say about him?"

"His disappearance concerns the whole family, one way or another," said Frodo. "I'd like to know where he's gone to."

"Aren't you curious at all, Jelly?" Merry asked.

"I could care less," Angelica answered with a toss of her ringlets. "It's nothing to do with me."

"I can tell you one thing certainly," Dora declared. "This is all Lobelia's doing."

No one took this statement as a serious accusation. It was well known that Dora and Lobelia had been feuding for more years than any of the young hobbits had been alive, as the two ladies vied for the position of family matriarch. Most of the Bagginses preferred to put up with Dora's meddling and advice rather than submit themselves to Lobelia's sharp tongue since, unlike Lobelia, Dora did mean well and was very generous to the relatives she was most fond of. Having no children of her own, she could afford to divide her interest among a number of family members she found worthy of attention. She would be leaving the Old Place to one of them; speculation favored Frodo, who was her closest relative, but as far as anyone knew, Dora had settled on no heir yet.

Bilbo could never abide his cousin Dora. After Frodo had come to live with him, Dora had sent him frequent, long letters full of advice concerning her nephew's upbringing, which Bilbo promptly tossed into the trash.

"You don't think she's done away with her own son, Aunt Dora?" Merry asked playfully.

"No, you imp," replied the old lady, "but whatever's happened to Lotho, you can be sure that Lobelia's led him into it. She's always pushed herself and her family forward. Calling her husband the head of the Baggins family was ridiculous when he was alive--imagine, Otho heading anything but a dinner table!--but she's only grown worse since he died." This was familiar ground; all of them had heard Dora's opinion of Lobelia many times before. "Head of the Bagginses! Why, they're not even full Bagginses, only half-Bagginses with that 'Sackville' tacked on when there's not a true Sackville left living from one end of the Shire to the other. Putting on airs is what I call it. Lobelia's ruined that son of hers by giving him ideas of what he ought to have by rights, when he had no right to it! Why, Lobelia's even had an eye on Angelica as a wife for her Lotho--but Angelica, I'm happy to say, wouldn't consider it. Sensible girl! Why don't you marry her, Frodo?"

"Me, Auntie?" Frodo said, startled as his aunt turned abruptly to him with this unexpected question. Sam, beside him, was sitting straight as a poker, and Frodo was aware that Angelica was also very still--her hand holding the tiny silver cream pitcher had frozen, poised over a teacup--and although her head was down, she was watching him through lowered eyelashes.

"Yes, why not? Marriage is the best thing for a young hobbit." Dora herself had never married. "Angelica's not of age yet, but she will be soon, and she's got a lot of good, Baggins common sense. She'd keep you from going peculiar, Frodo, like your Uncle Bilbo. No more going off to have adventures! You'd settle right down and she'd look after you well enough. Marry Angelica, and I'll leave this house to you."

"It's very generous of you to offer, Aunt Dora," Frodo said diplomatically, "but there must be other members of the family in greater need of it. I already have a home I'm quite fond of."

"It never hurts to keep an extra house or two in the family," Dora replied, undeterred. "It may come in handy one day. This house is half yours, you know, through your poor father Drogo."

Angelica lifted her head. "Don't be silly, Auntie," she said in a patient tone, but her eyes were flashing with stronger emotions. "You know I'm going to marry Lad Whitfoot."

"You could do better, dear. Frodo's much handsomer than Aladell Whitfoot, and richer and more clever too. A Mayor's son? Frodo could be Mayor himself if he had a mind for it. A pretty girl like you could have anybody she liked."

"Then I'd like to have Lad," Angelica retorted. Her cheeks were bright pink, and Frodo was sure that his own face was a similar color. If this was the usual way Dora spoke of him to Angelica, he couldn't blame the girl for resenting his presence. "Frodo doesn't care a straw for me... and besides," glancing up at her cousin, Angelica added archly, "I've heard that he's already spoken for."

Frodo sat very still now; he heard Sam gasp in a sharp intake of breath. He hadn't realized that the rumors had gone so far. If Angelica had heard the gossip about them, who else in the family had?

"Frodo? Spoken for?" Dora echoed with keen interest. "Now where did you hear that?"

"Oh, it's just a rumor that's going around," Angelica retreated quickly, aware by the way the boys were staring at her that she had gone too far. "You know how people gossip, Auntie--there may be nothing in it at all." The girl rose and kissed the old lady's cheek before leaving the room.

"Frodo," Dora turned to her nephew, question on her lips; Frodo wondered how he could possibly answer, when Peony came in, apron off and hair fixed neatly, bearing a large platter crowded with dozens of little cakes. Milo followed with one plate piled high with sandwiches in either hand. Frodo was saved from awkward explanations as everyone helped themselves to the food. Dora made a few feints at drawing his attention, but gave it up when she realized that Frodo was doing his best not to answer her; the lady thereafter nibbled on a cake, sipped her tea, and considered her nephew thoughtfully. Angelica returned with more cups and hot water to replenish the teapot, but did not remain in the room long. The conversation continued on less personal terms.

As the adults were finishing, the Burrows children came into the house all at once, clamoring for their own tea; Peony excused herself and saw to them in the kitchen. Merry and Pippin, who were good with children, went along to help out.

Once he had finished his tea, Milo turned to Frodo. "Will you come out for a smoke with me?" he offered. "Auntie won't have it in the house."

Since Frodo had hoped to speak privately with Milo--and it seemed that Milo was eager to speak to him--he accepted the invitation. "Will you excuse us, please, Aunt Dora?" he said as he rose from his chair.

"Of course, dear. Milo often goes out to smoke after a meal. I'm sure he misses having other gentlemen in the house to join him. Is your friend going with you?" Dora turned to Sam, who had barely said a word all during the visit.

When Sam looked up at him, Frodo met his eyes in apology; he knew that Sam would have preferred to go with him, but Milo would not confide in him easily if someone else were there. "I wouldn't like to leave you entirely by yourself, Auntie. Sam, you don't mind keeping company with Aunt Dora for awhile, do you? We won't be long."

Sam didn't look happy at the prospect, but he agreed.
Chapter 11 by Kathryn Ramage
Milo picked up an extra pipe for Frodo from the mantelpiece in his and Peony's room, and they went out through a side-door into a small, fenced-in yard under the steep slope on the southern side of the house. They could hear Merry and Pippin come out through the kitchen door to play with the children on top of the house, but were blocked from view by a row of trees.

Milo filled Frodo's pipe first, and gave it to him to light while he filled his own. "So, Aunt Dora offered you and Angelica this house?" he asked in a casual tone that sounded false.

Had someone been listening at the door, Frodo wondered, or had Milo and Peony heard the old lady make the same kind of offer to Angelica on other occasions? It hadn't surprised Angelica; rather, her response to Dora's offer suggested that she had heard it before.

"She did, but I don't want it," Frodo told him frankly. "I've no use for another house, and I've no more intention of marrying Angelica than she does me. You know how Aunt Dora is--she must manage everything for everybody. Old ladies like nothing better than to make matches. If they don't have children of their own, they'll marry off everyone else's! You and Peony want the Old Place, I presume?"

Milo nodded. "We are hoping for it." As Milo lit his own pipe, Frodo noticed that the knuckles of his cousin's right hand were bruised and scraped. "That's why we came here--to help look after Aunt Dora, and to give ourselves a bigger home. Aunt Dora's got so many extra rooms she never uses, and we've got four children and who knows if there might be more? The cottage my father gave us when we married just won't do for a growing family, and besides," he added reluctantly, "it's too expensive for us to keep a house of our own right now. If it weren't for Aunt Dora's generosity, we'd have to rent a bungalow like a laborer's family, and put all the children into one room."

"What about that property you have up around Needlehole?" When Milo looked surprised at the question, Frodo explained, "Merry and Pippin were telling me last night about your quarrel with Lotho over it."

"Yes, well," Milo answered. "It's more Peony's quarrel than mine--and Porto's and Angelica's father, Ponto's. But it's only right that I look after my wife's interests. It'll be the children's interest too one day."

"Why would Lotho want it?" Frodo asked. "After all, he's always been after Bag End. Is it worth anything? Is there even a house or farmstead on the land?"

"Not a livable one! I went up to look at it once last summer, just after Peony's father died. There's a little smial with trees atop, and the roots have grown in through the ceilings and walls inside. There's an old stone barn with the roof falling in. It needs plenty of work to repair it, but once that was done, it might do. I never thought that our Pimple was much of a farmer. He has all that land in the South Farthing where he grows pipeweed, and as far as I know, only goes down to nag at his agents. But from his interest in the place, I can only guess that he hopes to settle down there. I don't think he wants to share a home with his mother any longer." Milo chuckled. "Perhaps that's why he was after two houses--he meant to see Lobelia installed at Bag End once he got it away from you! Or perhaps he wanted both because she's led him to believe he had a right to both. That'd be just like Lotho, wouldn't it?"

"Couldn't you sell it to him?"

"As a matter of fact, all of us talked the matter over when Lobelia first began to make her fuss. We agreed that if she were to offer us a fair price for the property, we'd accept and divide the money between us--but we certainly didn't intend to give it over for nothing. Lobelia never did make us any kind of offer, and Lotho's carried on in the same line. It's rightfully his, he said. You know that Lotho's always had a better idea of his own rights above anybody else's."

"Yes, that's so," Frodo agreed. "He only offered to buy Bag End from me when he thought he could get it no other way." He wondered if Lotho had been annoying Peony's brothers, who also had part ownership of the coveted land, with the same zeal, or if he had focused his attentions solely on her and Milo; everything Frodo had heard seemed to suggest the latter.

"Perhaps he'll make us an offer too," Milo said with a laugh. "Peony and I would rather have the money, and he's welcome to the farm. The only value the place has as it is is from a local family who've put some of the land to use, and pay us rent to do so."

"Not the Puddlesbys?" asked Frodo.

Milo looked surprised again. "Yes. You know them?"

"I only heard the name yesterday."

"And the story of Miss Daisy too, I've no doubt!" Milo smiled, but he also began to look nervous. "Did Merry and Pip tell you everything we said at the Green Dragon last night?"

"Only the interesting bits," Frodo replied lightly, to allay his cousin's fears. Milo mustn't think that he was being spied upon. The truth seemed to be the best course. "You must know that I've had my share of trouble from Lobelia too, and would like to avoid more of it if I can. I'm anxious to find out where Lotho's gone before she starts making accusations. Do you mind if I ask you, Milo: How did you get to hear of Daisy Puddlesby?"

Milo still seemed nervous, but he agreed to answer. "It was when one of the Puddlesby sons came down to Hobbiton to give us our quarterly rent, not long after Lotho had begun to trouble us. He mentioned that Lotho had been paying court to his sister. I'd heard that Lotho and Lobelia had been cool with each other, and even heard some gossip about a girl he wanted to marry, but I didn't know who it was. Once I heard Daisy's name, I guessed that Lotho must have gone up that way to have a look at the farm last summer, just as I had, and met her then. I saw at once what he must be after that land for!"

"Do you think that's where Lotho is now?" Frodo asked him.

"I suppose so," said Milo, after a pause. Then his expression brightened. "Yes, that must be it! Oh, not the old farmsmial--no one could live there as it is--but why couldn't he have gone to stay at the Puddlesby farm or somewhere else nearby? Don't you agree, Frodo? Why, I'll wager he's up there with his Daisy now! Where else could he be?"

Frodo did think that this was the most likely answer, and yet it seemed to him that Milo had pounced on this solution rather too eagerly. In spite of his knowledge about Daisy Puddlesby, the idea had obviously not occurred to him before Frodo suggested it.

For the first time, a real and unwelcome suspicion began to tickle at the back of Frodo's mind. Milo seemed afraid that the true answer to Lotho's disappearance lay elsewhere, in something more unpleasant. What reason did he have to think so? Did Milo know more about this mystery than he was telling?

When they finished their pipes and went back into the house, Frodo found that Sam had moved the tuffet to sit closer to Dora's chair; he had retrieved the ball of yarn that had rolled away from her, and was working to untangle the unwound skein while the old lady chatted with him on friendly terms.

"What a sweet boy your friend is, Frodo!" Dora patted Sam's cheek affectionately. "So helpful and polite. You must bring him by more often."

"Yes, Auntie," Frodo promised. "But we really must be going now. Thanks so much for having us."

The two made their farewells and left the house.

"I'm sorry I had to leave you," he murmured to Sam once they were outside. "I hope Aunt Dora wasn't too difficult. It looks as if you got on very well with her."

"She wasn't so bad," Sam acknowledged. "Only... she wanted me to tell her who it was you'd betrothed yourself to."

"What did you say?"

Sam blushed. "I told her it was a secret."
Chapter 12 by Kathryn Ramage
As they walked away from the Old Place, Frodo turned to find Merry and Pippin on the hill above the house and waved to let them know that he and Sam were leaving. Since the two were busy playing with the children and seemed to be having a good time themselves, he did not expect them to come along, but Merry set down the little girl he was giving a pig-a-back ride, and he and Pippin came down amid disappointed cries from the children and pleas for promises to return. Frodo stood just outside the gate to wait for them.

"What do you think?" he asked once his cousins had joined him and Sam, and the four of them were walking together in the lane toward Bag End.

"I think that if it was Lobelia that'd disappeared, we'd all know who was responsible," Pippin joked. "Dotty Aunt Dora's been in the mood to do away with her for years! But I can't see her getting rid of Lotho, even if she was up to it."

"Did you know about Lad and Angelica?" asked Frodo.

"That they were planning to marry, no," said Merry. "But I thought he might be sweet on her. Milo was teasing Lad about Angelica last night."

"Sam said that Lotho was at the Dragon last Trewsday night, shouting at Lad. They almost came to blows. Lad didn't say anything about it, did he?" His cousins both shook their heads. "Could they have been fighting over her?" Frodo asked.

"If he thought he had a rival in Pimple, I could see Lad fighting for Jelly's sake," Merry replied.

"But from what I heard, Mr. Lotho was the one who wanted to fight," said Sam, "not Mr. Lad."

"And as far as we know, he's not interested in marrying Jelly anyway," Merry continued. "She might be his mother's choice, but he's got that farmer's daughter of his tucked away in the north. It's a pity--if Lotho were after Angelica, I could see her getting rid of him quite nicely. She's not going to let anybody get in her way of marrying Lad." He grinned at Frodo. "I thought she was going to throw the teapot at your head today if you'd shown any inclination to accept Aunt Dora's offer."

Frodo smiled in return. "She'd have to wait behind Milo and Peony to do it. They're the ones who want the house most desperately. Milo even asked me about it. I think he was afraid I'd accepted." Then he added, more seriously, "I suspect that Lad's not the only one who's been in a fight recently. Milo's knuckles are scraped--did you notice?"

"Yes, last night," said Merry, "but I never considered..." His eyes grew larger as he stared at Frodo. "Do you think-?"

"I don't know, but I can see that he's worried. Maybe it's only money troubles. Milo told me that he and Peony are short of funds right now, which seems odd now I think of it. I've never seen any sign that they lived extravagantly beyond their means. But I have a feeling that something more than money is troubling Milo, something to do with Pimple. He became very nervous when he found out I knew about Daisy Puddlesby."

"But that's ridiculous," Pippin objected. "Milo and Peony may have wanted to be rid of Pimple, but they wouldn't, not really-"

"Maybe not, but we have to think of it," Frodo informed him. "Sam gave me a good scolding about that the last time. If we're going to investigate this properly, we can't simply say that someone or other wouldn't ever commit murder--even if they are family--we have to consider everyone who has a reason or the opportunity, like it or not. And you have to assume that people will keep things back. He suspected everyone, didn't you, Sam?"

Merry eyed Sam. "Even me?"

Sam did not answer this, but Frodo said, "Well, you did have your reasons, even better ones than I realized at first, and you certainly didn't tell us everything you could have."

"And what about me?" Pippin pursued teasingly.

"Not suspected, exactly," Sam said, "but I thought you might lie for Mr. Merry's sake--and, begging your pardon, you would, wouldn't you?"

"Well, yes, of course," Pip admitted, "but I didn't."

"But you see how you can't take folk at their word. If they've got something to hide, Mr. Milo and Missus Peony'd lie for each other just the same, and so would Miss Angelica for Mr. Lad Whitfoot. And you know Mrs. Sackville-Baggins would lie fit to move heaven 'n' earth for her son."

No one could argue with that.

Once they rounded the curve of the hill, they were in sight of Bag End. "What do we do next?" asked Pippin. "Do we go on asking questions?"

"There are a few more things I'd like to know. Is Lad staying in Hobbiton?" Frodo wondered. "It seems likely to me that he is, if he wants to be near Angelica, but he isn't a guest at the Old Place. We would've seen him there, or they would've said something if he were. Besides, I don't think Aunt Dora would welcome him in the house if she wants Angelica to marry- ah- elsewhere. You don't know where he is?"

Merry shrugged. "He might be with other friends in the town."

"Maybe he's lodged at the Dragon," said Pippin. "They keep a room or two to let in the back."

"Can you find out?" Frodo requested. "Find him and ask what Lotho said to him, what their fight was about. And Sam-" he turned to his friend, "you said you know where the Puddlesbys live? It might be worth a trip to go and talk to this Daisy. It wouldn't surprise me if she knows where Lotho's been all along, and it will save us a lot of trouble if she does." They were now on the road that led up to Bag End; Frodo leaned slightly against Sam.

"I'll go 'n' see the Puddlesbys, but you've got to keep your promises too," Sam replied. As they reached the front gate, he held it open for Frodo. "There's been enough investigating for one day. You're to rest 'til dinner-time, and go right to bed afterwards."

"But I feel fine," said Frodo. "I'm hardly tired at all."

"I don't want you getting tireder," Sam told him firmly. "You aren't to sit up tonight talking about Mr. Lotho, and that's that."

"All right, Sam," Frodo surrendered, but his eyes were twinkling in amusement as he took Sam's arm and they went up the steps together. "I'll rest."
Chapter 13 by Kathryn Ramage
"How ill do you think Frodo really is?" Pippin asked that night as he and Merry were getting ready for bed.

The two had gone out to the Green Dragon after dinner, as they had the evening before, but Lad was not there. The barmaid informed them that Lad hadn't taken lodgings at the tavern; he had become a regular customer at the Dragon lately, but if he was staying in Bywater or Hobbiton, she didn't know where. Merry and Pippin had a couple of mugs of ale before returning to Bag End to find that Sam had left a lantern lit outside and the front door unlocked for them, but the house was quiet and dark when they went inside. Knowing that Frodo had already gone to bed, they stole quietly to their own room.

"Sam makes an endless fuss and frets over him like an old mother hen, and orders him about. And Frodo lets him. I think he even likes it," Pippin went on as he shed his clothes, tossing coat, then waistcoat, then shirt onto the chair by the door. "You never fuss over me the way Sam does Frodo."

"You've never been sick."

"Is he sick then, Merry? Really?" There was a sudden change in Pippin's tone as he asked this question. Merry looked up from his own undressing and saw that Pippin wasn't playing; he was seriously concerned. "It was what you were talking about this morning, wasn't it?"

Merry nodded. "He isn't well," he told Pippin. "How sick, I don't know."

"What's the matter with him? It isn't just what happened in Buckland. He's never been very strong since we came home."

"Not since he came back from Mordor," said Merry. "It's the Ring. Even now that he's rid of it. It ate at him from the inside for so long, and it'll take a long time for him to heal. He's been touched by an evil thing, Pippin, and there's no getting over that."

Pippin nodded solemnly. They all had been touched by that evil to some degree--Frodo by far the worst, since he had carried the Ring until he had succumbed completely to its power, but Pippin had looked into the palantir and fallen under Sauron's gaze, and Merry had been stricken when he'd stabbed the Lord of the Nazgul. They both knew a small part of the darkness that had engulfed their cousin, enough to be frightened for his sake.

Merry didn't tell the whole truth, which he had realized while talking with Frodo that morning: Frodo would never fully recover from the Ring's influence. The wound had gone too deep to heal. Frodo had been about to ask him not to say anything when they'd been interrupted--and Merry wouldn't, not to Pippin, even though he was beginning to guess, and not to Sam, who must see the truth even if he was trying his hardest not to recognize it. It was surely the reason behind all his fussing. Since their conversation, Merry found it hard not to fuss over Frodo himself.

Pippin, down to his smalls, climbed onto the bed to fish his nightshirt out from under the pillow. "Would you look after me if I was ill, Merry?" he asked as he pulled the shirt on over his head. "I looked after you, didn't I?" He had resumed a playful tone, but a light shone in his eyes as he smiled at his cousin.

"Yes, you did," Merry answered, smiling back with affection. He knew what Pippin was thinking of: after he had stabbed the Lord of the Nazgul, he'd been struck down by a Dark Spell. An icy coldness had lay upon his heart, and darkness dimmed his eyes. Pippin had found him on the battlefield outside Minas Tirith and brought him to the Houses of Healing. "You sat by my bedside all the time I was ill, and when I awoke, you were right there."

"I was never so afraid," Pippin replied. "I thought you were going to die. You were lying so still and cold--like Frodo after that same Black Rider stabbed him. I never knew how much I loved you, 'til I thought I was about to lose you. I don't ever want to lose anyone I love."

Merry climbed on the bed beside him. "I can't say that that won't ever happen," he said gently, "but it won't happen for a long time. Whatever will come, we have each other here and now." He gathered Pippin into his arms, then leaned over to blow out the candle on the nightstand.
Chapter 14 by Kathryn Ramage
The next day, Mersday, was the weekly market day at Bywater, and Sam delayed his trip to the Puddlesby farm to do some shopping. With two hungry guests to feed, the household stores must be kept well-supplied, and that took precedence over any investigations. Merry and Pippin were also out that morning, continuing their search for Lad Whitfoot.

Left alone at Bag End, Frodo settled down to write. Once the others had gone, he sat in his study with Bilbo's large red book open on the desk before him and a freshly-dipped quill at hand, poised for his first sentence... but how to begin? Should he recount some of the history of the Ring first, or save that 'til later? Perhaps he should tell the true tale of how Bilbo had gotten it from Gollum, and explain the earlier, not-quite-accurate version that Bilbo had written himself so long ago. Or perhaps it was best to begin with his own part of the story, with the day the Ring had come into his possession.

Frodo considered the matter carefully, tickling the corner of his mouth with the feather-tip of the quill, then wrote: When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence...

There was a knock on the door. Normally, Frodo would leave it for Sam to answer, but since he was alone in the house, he set down his quill, leaving the sentence unfinished, and went to see who his visitor could be.

Peony Burrows stood on the doorstep.

"Good morning, Peony!" Frodo said in surprise. "What brings you here?"

"I was on my way to the market," she explained, brandishing the oaken basket on her arm as evidence, "and thought I'd drop by to return your call of yesterday. You aren't busy, are you, Frodo?"

"No, not particularly," he answered. It was a lie, but Peony had never visited him before; this was obviously not a social call, and Frodo quickly decided that he could put his writing aside long enough to hear what she had to say. "Come in, please."

He escorted her to the best parlor, then excused himself to dart into the kitchen. Sam had left the kettle steaming on the hob in case Frodo wanted hot water while he was out; it was the work of a minute to make a pot of tea and put the sugar bowl, two cups, and a plateful of honey-cakes on a tray. When he returned to the parlor, Peony was standing by the fireplace. Frodo offered her some tea, and they sat down together on the settee and exchanged a few pleasantries. He waited until his guest was composed and comfortable, and ready to tell him why she had come.

"Milo tells me that you were asking him about Lotho," she said at last. "You're looking into the matter yourself."

"Yes, that's right," Frodo confirmed.

"I wish you wouldn't," Peony told him bluntly. "No good can come of it. This disappearance of his has been difficult for everyone in the family, with the shirriffs asking questions. We oughtn't poke and pry at each other as well, stirring up all sorts of ugly suspicions. I feel we should stand together during this crisis, don't you?"

"Yes," Frodo agreed, "but I also believe that we must try to get at the truth."

"The truth!" cried Peony. "The truth is that Lotho's run off with that farmlass, and rather than do it bravely and out in the open like any honest gentlehobbit, he must sneak away and hide and make a great mystery of it. He's upset his mother--and as little good as I have to say about Lobelia, I wouldn't wish anyone's son to behave that way--and he's made a lot of unnecessary trouble for the rest of us."

Milo had said nearly the same thing about Lotho's whereabouts, but Frodo wondered if Peony believed it any more than her husband did. Were they trying to convince themselves--or to convince him? Just as he had sensed yesterday that Milo was nervous, Frodo thought that Peony was frightened.

"The only crime here is inconsiderate behavior," Peony went on, speaking quickly, "but what can we expect from Lotho Sackville-Baggins? He never did any good where he could do harm instead. Mark my words, he'll show up when it suits him." Her hand shook so that her tea splashed about in its cup, and she set it down before it spilled. "So you see, Frodo, there's no point in prying into a matter that'll resolve itself as soon as Lotho decides to come home again. 'Til then, things are distressing enough for us all. You can only make it worse if you go around asking into other people's private affairs--especially your own family's!--and, well, I wish you wouldn't, that's all," she concluded her outburst rather weakly. "Please, promise me you won't."

"If you're referring to my questions to Milo, I only asked about your farm property in the north because I thought it might be where Lotho's gone into hiding," Frodo explained to try and soothe her. "I meant nothing more by it. I don't wish to pry into your private affairs, Peony. I only want to find Lotho before Lobelia makes more trouble. You know the sort of thing she's capable of."

"Yes..." Peony agreed reluctantly, then burst out again with the question, "You don't suspect Milo of doing anything to get rid of Lotho, do you?"

Frodo didn't know how to reply without causing her greater distress, for this was just what he did suspect. He had seen and heard too much: Milo's scraped knuckles. His talk about money troubles. His nervous responses to any questions about Lotho and their quarrel. It wasn't proof of guilt, but it was enough to worry him. He understood why Peony was so eager for him to stop his investigation: she was worried for her husband as well.

Peony saw his hesitation, and her eyes widened. "You do think so!"

"Peony-" He reached out to place a hand on her arm, but she drew back from the touch.

"You do, Frodo! It's why you've been poking around." Peony leapt up. "Oh, why can't you leave us be? Milo's done nothing wrong." She headed for the door.

"But you think so yourself," said Frodo.

At these words, she stopped with one hand on the curved frame of the door, but didn't turn back to face him. "I do not! How can you suggest such a thing?"

"Then why did you come here?" he asked, rising from the settee and crossing the room after her. "You're afraid that I'll find out something you don't want me to, something that tells against Milo. What is it? Peony, what do you know?"

"I don't know anything!" she insisted, shaking her head vehemently.

"What do you suspect then? What makes you frightened for Milo's sake?" He stood beside her now. "Peony, please believe that I only wish to know the truth. It's the only way to find an answer to this mystery. You know how fond I am of both of you and Milo.I wouldn't deliberately cause you harm. If Milo has nothing to do with Lotho, then you have nothing to fear."

When he put a hand on her arm this time, Peony did not throw it off. Her head was down against her raised arm, her brown curls falling over her face. "I shouldn't have come," she sobbed. "I wanted to protect him, and I've made matters worse." She lifted her head to regard Frodo with tearful eyes. "If Milo's arrested, it'll be your fault!"

With that, she fled the room and left Bag End. Frodo did not try to stop her.
Chapter 15 by Kathryn Ramage
Merry and Pippin's search for Lad Whitfoot led them around Hobbiton and Bywater, but their first efforts were fruitless. Since it was market day, few people were at home to talk to them, and the friends of Lad they did speak to had not seen him.

"For all we know," Pippin concluded dispiritedly after they had knocked on the doors of a dozen smials and cottages, "Frodo's wrong and Lad isn't here. Perhaps he rides all the way to Michel Delving every night, and back again in the morning."

"No, he said he was here..." Merry's equally downcast expression suddenly brightened as he recalled what Lad had said that first night at the Green Dragon. "He said he was here to look at ponies! What places hereabouts would have ponies to sell?

Thereafter, they focused their inquiries on the local farriers and stables. It was at the stable where Dora Baggins' household kept their ponies that they found an answer: the groomsman proudly showed them a shaggy black-and-white pony that had been delivered for Mr. Milo that morning from the Gammidges' farm, which lay less than a mile outside Hobbiton.

It was midday by the time they reached the farm, but their search ended there. They were just in time, for Farmer Gammidge told them Lad had been staying at the farm for the past two weeks, but was leaving that very day. In another hour, they would have missed him. The farmer showed them to Lad's room, where he was packing his bag.

Lad was surprised to see them. "Pip, Merry, hello. What are you doing here?

"We've just seen Milo's new pony," said Merry, beginning the conversation on comfortable terms; he didn't want to put Lad on his guard too early so that he refused to talk to them. "You've made a good choice, Lad. It looks like a real runner."

"Oh, he can run all right!" Lad agreed with enthusiasm, for this was the one subject on which he could speak with authority. "I've seen him take the fields here at the farm fast as a rabbit with a pack of hounds at his heels--he'd be wasted pulling a farmer's cart. I knew he was just what Milo was looking for. Are you looking for a pony, Merry? I didn't know you were interested in the races."

"I like to place a wager now and again, same as anybody," Merry answered, "but I wasn't thinking of getting a pony to race myself. We were surprised to hear that Milo had actually bought one--weren't we, Pip?"

Pippin nodded in agreement, although he wasn't surprised; it was, after all, exactly what both Lad and Milo had told them Milo was planning to do. Lad said as much himself.

"Yes, but we'd heard the Burrowses were having money troubles," Merry said. "Can he afford such an extravagance?"

"We've gone in halves on it," Lad explained. "Well, more like I've leant Milo his half of the money to buy the pony, and he's promised to pay me back from his winnings. He didn't have much luck last season, but he's got some high hopes on this one. I don't mind lending him. Milo's been my friend for years, and we're almost kin. You see, I'm-" the young hobbit blushed and ducked his head.

"Going to marry Angelica," Merry finished for him.

"It's all right, Lad. We know all about it," said Pippin. "We were visiting the Old Place yesterday."

"And heard Miss Baggins tell 'Gelica she should pick somebody else, I'll be bound," Lad said glumly. "Milo's the only one of 'Gelica's family that likes me. He passes my messages on to her, and brings hers back to me here... or at the Dragon. Now the pony's been paid for and sent to Milo, I don't have an excuse to stay around any longer. I'll have to be off home." He gestured at the packed bag on the bed. "Well, as long as you're here, why don't you come have lunch with me? Mrs. Gammidge sets a good table. I'm sorry I won't have time to stop by the Dragon before I go. You could see me off properly with one last ale."

Mrs. Gammidge was out at the market, like every farmer's wife in the Bywater area, but she had left lunch in the farmhouse kitchen for her husband and guest: bread, cheese, pickles, the leftovers of last night's mutton-and-potato pie, and mugs of the best house-brewed beer, which all three young hobbits agreed was at least as good as any they could get at the Green Dragon, so Lad was sent off respectably.

"The first races at Michel Delving are only a few days away," Lad said over the meal. Farmer Gammidge had finished in his lunch and gone outside to smoke, leaving the trio alone to discuss their 'gentlefolk's business.' "Milo was hoping to go with me to start the season, but it looks like he'll have to stay on here awhile. He can't leave his family in the middle of this trouble about Lotho."

"You've no idea where he's gone, Lad?" asked Pippin.

"Lotho?" Lad gave the matter some thought as he munched on a piece of cheese, then shook his head.

"We thought you might know."

As Lad stared at Pippin, the points of his ears began to turn pink. "Why? What d'you think I have to do with it?"

"We didn't come to talk about ponies, Lad," Merry finally admitted. "There's something else we wanted to ask you about: your fight with Pimple."

Lad sat silent and shrank into his chair. Then, he asked timidly, "Did Milo tell you?"

"No, actually, we have other sources of information," Pippin said with a note of mystery.

"I expect a dozen people saw us at the Dragon," said Lad. "The shirriff even asked me about it. I had to answer him, but Milo said I shouldn't go around talking to anyone else 'til we found out where Lotho was. He said it looked too bad for me."

"Was Milo there?" Merry asked him.

"No, he came by afterwards. He was looking for Lotho himself, as a matter of fact. I told him what'd happened. I told Angelica a bit too, but not as much. She only knows that I quarreled with Lotho over her."

"Did you?" Pippin inquired eagerly.

"Yes, but not the way you think, or the way I let 'Gelica think," Lad admitted.

"Then what did happen?" Merry pursued.

"Well..." Lad looked from one to the other. "Pimple's mother's been pushing him to marry Angelica. Did you hear about that?" When the two nodded, he added, "I wasn't worried for Angelica--as if she'd look at a shriveled-up little stick like Lotho Sackville-Baggins!--but I didn't know how Lotho felt about her. I didn't hear about this Miss Daisy 'til Milo told you. Anyway, I was there Trewsday night, sitting and waiting for Milo, when Lotho came to my table. He asked after my father, said he was thinking of running for Mayor himself."

The other two hobbits exchanged looks of surprise. Lotho run for Mayor?

"He said he thought he could do a better job of running things. I didn't know what to make of it," said Lad, "and I wasn't as friendly with him as I might've been. Lotho must've guessed why, for he laughed and said, 'Don't fret, Laddie. You're quite safe as far as Miss Angelica Baggins is concerned. I don't have any designs on her'. He said it in such a way that I couldn't take any comfort from it. It was nasty-like, as if he thought she wasn't good enough for him. 'Gelica! The prettiest girl in the Shire!" Lad's round, good-natured face was red in indignation on his beloved's behalf. "So I said to him, meaning to serve him out for 'Gelica's sake, 'Well, I'm sure she'll be glad to hear that! What would she want with a Pimple like you!'"

"And that's when the fight started?" Pippin asked.

Lad nodded. "You'd've thought I'd slapped him, or thrown my ale in his face, instead of calling him a name half of Hobbiton calls him by. He ought to be used to it by now. His face went as purple as a beetroot, and I thought he would throttle me if he could get his hands 'round my neck. He might've too, if some of the farm lads from hereabouts hadn't jumped in and pulled him off."




"Well, that's one question of Frodo's answered," Merry said after he and Pippin had seen Lad off from the Gammidges' farm and were walking back into town. "There's no reason to suppose it didn't happen just as Lad said it did."

"No." Then Pippin's eyes brightened mischievously. "But what if we look at it as Sam said we should, and assume Lad's not telling all the truth? The fight in the pub happened just as he said--there's a dozen witnesses to that. But what if Lad ran into Pimple again afterwards, on that same Trewsday night?"

Merry looked interested. "You mean, Pimple might've been waiting for him outside the Dragon to carry on their fight?"

"Why not? And think of how it would go: Lad was caught by surprise when Pimple came at him the first time, but if he was in a position to defend himself, he'd only have to give Lotho a good knock on the head to put a stop to him. Or maybe when he saw Pimple, he decided to pay him back for insulting Jelly?"

"Yes, I can see that," Merry agreed. "In a fair fight, scrawny little Pimple would be no match for a strapping young hobbit like our Lad. Lad could've killed him with a single well-aimed blow, not even meaning to do harm."

"And then he got frightened and hid the body?" suggested Pippin.

"And Lotho's been lying under some brambles in a ditch all this time?" Merry shook his head. "No, surely someone would've found him by now."

"What about in a pond then, under the lily pads? Or in the cellars of the Dragon under the empty kegs?"

As they met each other's eyes, both hobbits laughed. It was all nonsense, and they knew it. While it was just conceivable that Lad might have struck Lotho down by accident, he could never have hidden the body in a panic so successfully that no one had found it a week later, and then put on a calm face afterwards. Not the Lad Whitfoot they knew. He couldn't hide anything: If he were guilty of doing harm, it would show so clearly in his face that all the Shire would see it.

"Do you think there's anything in this Pimple business, Merry?" Pippin asked once they had stopped laughing. "Truly? Or are we only poking in where we don't belong?"

"I don't know," Merry admitted. "Frodo seems to think there's something going on. Why else would he want us to keep asking questions? We'll go on investigating as long as he wants us to."

As they returned to Hobbiton, they saw that a crowd of people had gathered on the village green in front of the post office and the hut that served as a sherriff's station, and were babbling excitedly. Merry and Pippin went forward quickly to find out what was going on.
Chapter 16 by Kathryn Ramage
Sam had finished his errands in the Bywater market; his shopping basket was full and he had given orders to various shopkeepers for larger items to be delivered to Bag End. He was intending to go home, when he spotted Ted Sandyman coming out of the mill. While Sam would prefer not to speak to Ted if he could avoid it, he felt obligated to give his questioning of the miller's son a second try, since his first attempt had failed so badly. Setting his jaw determinedly, he headed toward the mill.

"Well, if it isn't Sherriff Samwise Gamgee!" Ted called out derisively as Sam approached. "Solved your crime yet, have you, Sam? Found out who's done away with Lotho?"

"No," Sam retorted. "You sure you didn't pop him into your grinding-mills, Ted?"

Ted laughed. "Is that what you think I've done?"

"No," Sam answered. They were only a few feet apart now, and he lowered his voice to speak more seriously. "I don't think he's dead at all. I think he's run off. It's like I told you, I'm looking into it on Mr. Frodo's behalf. As long Mr. Lotho comes back in the end, I don't care where he was or what he was up to. 'Til he does, a lot of good folk are under suspicion--and you too, Ted." Ted gulped hard at this, and Sam pushed on; if appeals didn't work, then perhaps a threat would. "Now whyn't you do the sensible thing and answer a question or two, unless you've got something to hide?"

Ted's face flushed. "I'm not hiding anything--you can't say I am! I told Sherriff Smallburrows the truth!"

"Then why don't you tell me? It's a bit early for lunch, but the Ivy Bush is just across the way." Sam inclined his head in the direction of the inn on the far side of the market square. "My treat," he offered grudgingly.

The Ivy Bush Inn was busiest on market days, for many hobbits who lived away from the center of Bywater stopped to have lunch there rather than interrupt their shopping with a long walk home. Since it was a pleasant spring day, tables and benches were placed in the stone-paved courtyard between the two curved wings of the long, low building. Even though it was early, it was already crowded, but Sam and Ted found a table tucked in at the back--as private a seat as could be managed in so public a place. Sam ordered pork pies, an apple tart, and enough of the inn's ale to loosen Ted's tongue.

"Now, what was this business you were getting into with Mr. Lotho?" he asked after they had settled down. "Did you cheat him?"

"I wasn't cheating him!" Ted insisted fiercely. "No one can say I did--not you, not him, and not the sherriffs! It was Lotho who came to me. He knew how I wanted to expand on the mill, make it bigger, put in more grinding-wheels. He said he'd help me to do it." Sam looked alarmed at the idea, and Ted grinned. "It sounded pretty good to me! You want to know what happened, Sam? I'll tell you, and I'll tell you what I didn't tell Sherriff Smallburrows. Lotho Sackville-Baggins is the only hobbit hereabouts with the sense to see what sort of progress can be made with more machines and a bit of order. He used sit with me at the Green Dragon and talk about how the Shire needed putting to rights. He'd say how there was a lot of old rot that ought to be cleared away--old houses knocked down and new buildings put up, old trees chopped down for lumber, and empty fields put to better use. He said the smartest people ought to be at the top, running things, instead of some useless fat Mayor at Michel Delving and your 'fine' families like the Brandybucks and Tooks, who're no better than the rest of us in spite of their fancy names. Oh, don't look so shocked, Sam Gamgee. If you weren't so soft, you'd want it that way yourself. You're not so simple as you're made out to be. You could have a place at the top if you'd a mind to."

"I'm happy as I am," said Sam, horrified at the things he was hearing.

"You could have that pretty gent of yours, just as you like, and no one to say he's above you."

Sam did not respond to this taunt, but he couldn't help blushing. "You was telling me about what Lotho said," he prompted. "What's all this fol-de-rol got to do with the mill?"

"Lotho said he thought I was one of the smart ones," Ted replied with a note of self-satisfaction, "and he would help me get up a step or two better. He said he'd made some good money in selling pipeweed outside the Shire, and he wanted to put it into the mill on the promise that he'd have his share of the profits. We'd be partners."

"But you didn't get to do it. What happened?" asked Sam.

"I couldn't get my dad to agree to it. When I told him about Lotho's offer, Dad said there wasn't any need. I'd done enough expanding and there wasn't any more corn that needed grinding. I'd have to wait 'til the mill was mine to do as I liked. So that was the end of that!" Ted sounded deeply disappointed, but Sam silently blessed old Miller Sandyman.

"But I take it Mr. Lotho didn't give up so easily?" he asked.

"No. He tried to buy the mill off of Dad, and when Dad wouldn't hear of it, Lotho said I should've tried harder to win 'm over. I wasn't keeping up my side of the bargain. We'd only had a handshake on it, but he said I'd broken our contract and cheated him. He said I was a fool, and was making the worst mistake of my life in not coming along with him. Well, maybe he was right about that, but what could I do? In any case, Lotho's had his revenge. One of our grindstones was carried off."

Sam remembered Ted standing on the platform above the huge gears and frowning down into the grinding box. "How d'you know it was him?"

"It must've been," Ted answered. "I can't think why anybody would want to steal such a thing, except out of spite."

Sam rose from his seat, leaving his lunch unfinished; he was eager to get away from Ted now that he'd learned what he needed to. But even before he could make a farewell or find some excuse to leave, he heard the sounds of a sudden commotion in the marketplace.
Chapter 17 by Kathryn Ramage
After Peony had gone, Frodo went outside and sat on the bench in the garden. Her visit had only increased those tickles of suspicion that he'd begun to feel yesterday; he could not dismiss them now that he knew someone else--someone much closer to Milo--was thinking the same thing.

Milo and Peony were not his nearest relations, but they had always been kind to him, and he liked them. He hated to hurt them. He hoped they would forgive him for what he had to do, but he couldn't rest until he'd discovered the truth: What did Milo know about Lotho's disappearance?

Who could he turn to for an answer but Milo himself?

He rose from the bench and left Bag End, walking swiftly down the hill and along the lane toward the Old Place. If he was going to speak to Milo, he wanted to do it right away, before Peony was there and made it impossible for him to have a private conversation with Milo, and before Sam came home and tried to stop him from 'running about.'

When he arrived at the Old Place, Angelica answered the door. "Aunt Dora's napping," she said tersely, as if she hoped to dismiss him. "Can you come back later?"

But Frodo would not be turned away. "I don't wish to disturb Aunt Dora," he told her. "It was Milo I wanted to see. Is he in?"

"Uncle Milo's about somewhere." One of the little Burrowses was playing quietly in the yard. "Mosco?" Angelica called to him. "Where's your father?"

"He's gone to the stable to see the new pony."

"Go and fetch him, will you? Tell him Frodo's here." After the child had scampered off, she turned back to the visitor and offered, "Come in, Frodo. You can wait in the parlor."

In the parlor, Frodo took the same overstuffed chair by the fire. Instead of leaving him to wait alone, Angelica sat down across from him and stared at him. Her cheeks were very pink. Frodo wondered if she was angry that he had come back again, and if she intended to carry on the way she had behaved to him yesterday.

To his surprise, she said, "I was awful the last time you were here, Frodo. I'm sorry if I embarrassed you. I only wanted to make Aunt Dora stop going on about what a catch you'd be as a husband when she knows I want to marry Lad Whitfoot. She isn't so bad to live with most of the time, but when she starts talking about you, it's all I can do to keep from packing my things to go home."

"It's all right," Frodo accepted her apology graciously. "But who told you about that- ah- rumor?"

"Lad did. He's not happy with how Aunt Dora's been pushing you either. He can be horribly jealous--why, he got into a fight with Lotho over me just last week!" Angelica sounded rather pleased about this. "But when I told him that you were coming to tea, Lad laughed and said I had no reason to fret. You wouldn't marry anybody. He'd heard a story that's been going around about you and your gardener. Lad thought it was only a good joke. I don't think he believed it, but I wondered if it wasn't the truth."

"You believed it?"

"Well, it is true, isn't it?" his cousin asked back. "You're like Pippin and Merry?"

"Um- yes," Frodo admitted.

Angelica nodded. "I thought so. I knew how you never looked at girls. You never looked at me."

Frodo thought this was rather vain of her, but he admitted that she had a point. He couldn't help being aware that he was considered one of the most eligible young bachelors around Hobbiton; a good many mothers and aunties must see him as a 'catch' for their girls--and yet the girls themselves never seemed very eager to catch him. Even if they were too innocent to understand why, perhaps, like Angelica, they sensed that he had no interest in them.

"Then, when you brought Sam Gamgee here to tea, I was sure I was right," Angelica concluded. "But I only said what I did because I'm sick to death of hearing of what a dear boy you are, how rich, how nice-looking, how much in need of a good wife to manage you..."

"And Aunt Dora knew you'd be a managing sort of wife," Frodo teased.

"Lad needs more managing than you do," Angelica retorted in the same spirit. "I think I can make something of him. I will marry him once I'm of age this October. I'd do it now, only Mother and Father won't give me permission. They want me to stay here as long as I can and look after Aunt Dora, in hopes that she'll name me as her heir. I suppose they think I can do better than Lad too. Well, I don't care about the house. Aunt Dora can leave it to whoever she likes. Lad's father will give us some nice cottage around Michel Delving once we're married.

"I'm sure you're nice enough, Frodo--much nicer than Lotho! If I had to choose between you and him, I'd take you. But as long as I'm allowed to make up my own mind, I'd much rather marry someone who thinks the world of me, whether anybody else approves it or not."

"So would I," said Frodo.

Angelica smiled at him. "Then I hope you're very happy. I intend to be."

The door opened and they both looked up as Milo came into the parlor.

"Frodo," he said, regarding his visitor expressionlessly. "I can't say I'm surprised to see you. Will you excuse us, please, Angelica? Frodo and I have some- ah- business to discuss."

"Yes, of course, Uncle Milo," Angelica replied, confused by her uncle's odd behavior, but she rose to leave them alone. "Goodbye, Frodo. I'm glad we had this chance to talk."

As soon as he was certain that Angelica had gone out of hearing, Milo whirled and said, "Come to ask me more questions, you nosy, wretched little beast?"

Frodo was too startled by this venomous hiss to reply; he was almost afraid that Milo would strike him, or else seize him by the coat-lapels and haul him up for a ferocious shaking. He'd never seen Milo so furious before. Before he could think of what to say, Milo went on:

"Your spies, Pip and Merry, were at the stables before I arrived, or so the groom informs me. They were asking questions about a pony I've purchased--where it came from. You're looking into everybody's business, aren't you lads? If I'd any idea what you were up to, I would never have asked them to join me and Lad at the Dragon, or invited you here." Milo's voice was quavering with anger and, more than that, fear. "I've always been decent to you, haven't I? Why are you hounding me? What is it you're after, Frodo?"

"I told you yesterday: I'm trying to find out where Lotho went," Frodo answered quietly.

"And what does that have to do with me?"

"I don't know. Why don't you tell me?"

"Why don't I-?" Milo echoed. "What?" His face, already flushed, turned a darker red. "Are you suggesting that I've done away with Lotho?" he asked hoarsely.

"No, not exactly, but I know you're hiding something. I don't want to believe the worst of you, Milo. Neither does Peony."

"Peony?"

"Peony visited me today," Frodo told him. "She wants me to stop prying too. She was trying to convince me, and perhaps herself, that you had nothing to do with Lotho's disappearance, but she didn't succeed either way. She's afraid for you, but she wouldn't tell me why. I want you to. Milo, what is it you've done that's frightened her so badly? Why are you so afraid?"

Milo stared at him, and the red slowly drained from his face. He fumbled for the pipe in his coat pocket, took it out, and lit it with shaking hands, forgetting that Dora had forbidden smoking in her house.

"You comfortably wealthy little beggars," he said after a minute. "Boys like you, Lad, Merry and Pip--You've never known what it is not to have enough money, have you? You don't even consider it. You'd toss away a fortune without a moment's thought, and laugh as if it didn't matter. You don't have a wife and children depending on you to look after them."

Frodo did not say that he had gone penniless for months on his quest, lived half-starved and in rags, and been in places where money would be no use at all. He couldn't tell Milo that he knew what it was to be utterly without comfort--Milo wouldn't believe it, nor be able to understand it. "But you were left well enough off," he said instead. "And Peony's got her own money."

"That's been eaten up. Peony's money too. She said it was mine as well as hers. She shouldn't have been so generous. It's nearly been the ruin of us both."

"Where did it go?"

"I lost it," Milo replied bitterly. "It's all my fault. I'd made too many foolish wagers. I lost quite a lot last year on a pony I bought for the races--I even lost the pony in the end, but I can't be too sorry about that. Peony's been terribly good about it, even when we had to shut up our cottage and come here and live on Aunt Dora's kindness."

Frodo had never taken much interest in pony races or other games of chance, but he'd seen enough of the keen players to know that, while the common folk squabbled enthusiastically over every penny wagered regardless of whether they won or lost, it was considered unseemly for well-bred hobbits to care how much they gambled away. Gently bred hobbits were not supposed to think about their money. When Milo spoke of comfortably wealthy young hobbits who tossed away a fortune without a thought, Frodo believed he was recalling his own more carefree and reckless past; he could imagine Milo losing his fortune little by little with such an affected air of indifference, and then finding himself in deep trouble as he began to lose more than he could afford.

"It's taken the burden off us considerably, living here," Milo went on. "We don't have the expenses we used to, keeping our own home, but I still owe a great deal of money."

"To Lotho?"

"Oh, I never made wagers with him. Lotho's no gambler. But when this business with that blasted piece of farmland started, he bought up some of my debts, then he came here to see Peony." Milo scowled darkly. "He held my debts over her. He promised he'd rip them up if she'd hand over the land he was after. If she agreed, her brothers would follow her lead to keep the scandal quiet. None of the family has been very pleased with me lately, but they'd do all they could to keep Peony from being publicly shamed.

"Peony, bless her, wouldn't agree to it. She told him 'No,' in no uncertain terms and showed him out the door. When I came in that evening, she told me what Lotho had said. Well, that was the final straw. I'd had my fill of Lotho and his scheming. I wouldn't mind coming to a pleasant agreement to get rid of my debts, but for him to come here in that low, underhanded way--and make threats to Peony! That was more than I could bear. I went tearing off to find him. When I looked in at the Green Dragon, I saw there was some excitement going on. The farmlads had just thrown out some brawler."

"Lotho?" Frodo guessed. "He'd just had his fight with Lad?"

"Yes, that's right," said Milo. "I wasn't there to see it, but Lad told me what'd happened. He told me how Lotho had spoken slightingly of Angelica."

"Did you get into a fight, Milo? That same night?"

Milo hesitated, then nodded. "After I spoke to Lad, I knew that Lotho couldn't have gone far. I went looking 'round the Dragon, and found him sitting by the well in that grove on the hills behind. I thought I'd better deal with him there, in private. You can see why, can't you? He'd badgered my wife, and then he insulted my niece! I'd be a coward if I didn't defend them. I demanded an apology, but Lotho wouldn't take it back. He laughed and said that as long as he held my debts, Peony and I would have to do as he wanted. Well, there's only so much a decent hobbit can put up with. Before I knew what I was doing, I swung my fist and hit him in the jaw as hard as I could. I knocked him down. While he was lying sprawled on the grass, I told him he'd get his money as soon as I could pay him, but if he ever bothered any of my family again, I'd give him a worse beating. He wasn't laughing anymore, but crept away like a whipped dog--I thought he'd gone home to sulk and nurse his wounds.

"I worried afterwards that he might seek revenge in some ugly, hateful way, but Peony and I never heard another word from him. I wonder if he didn't leave Hobbiton that same night." Milo chuckled dismally. "When I first heard that he'd gone away, I was relieved. I thought our troubles with him were over. It wasn't until Sherriff Smallburrows came to talk to Peony and me about our quarrel with Lotho that I saw the worse trouble I was in. We agreed not to say anything about Lotho's last visit to her."

"Did you tell Peony you'd fought with him?" asked Frodo.

"No, but she must've seen how mussed I was when I came home that night. My hand was bleeding. She must have thought..." Milo's eyes went wide. "Oh, the poor darling! She must've imagined the worst. Wives will do that--You'll see for yourself if ever you marry, Frodo. And all this time, she's been afraid of what I'd done. I should have told her, but at the time I thought it best not to. I've heard since that Lotho'd been quarreling all over Hobbiton, but as far as I know, I'm the only one who actually struck him. Even if he'd run off with his Daisy, it didn't look good for me."

"Do you think that's really what's happened to him, Milo?"

"I don't know..." Milo said faintly, and shook his head. "Frodo, I swear I don't. I sincerely hope that he's gone off with that girl of his, and this mess will resolve itself before the accusations start flying." He regarded the younger hobbit seated before him warily. "What are you going to do?"

"Nothing," said Frodo.

"Nothing?" Milo echoed incredulously. "You aren't going to fly to the shirriffs and tell them what I've just told you?"

"No. Why should I? It doesn't answer their question, or mine." Frodo looked up to meet his cousin's eyes. "I believe you, Milo, when you say that you don't know where Lotho is. And you're quite right: the rest of it is none of my business. I don't wish to make things awkward for you or Peony by spreading tales around."

Milo was still staring at him. "I must admit I'm relieved to hear you say it, after all the trouble you took to dig my secrets out. You and the lads had me more frightened than the sherriffs did! You won't tell anybody--not even your spies?"

"Oh, them!" Frodo laughed. "I'll have to say something to call them off." He wondered what Merry and Pippin could have been doing at the stable.

Milo nodded and accepted this. "You're an odd little hobbit, Frodo Baggins. Most peculiar."

"So I've been told."




Once he left Milo, Frodo hurried home, hoping to be back at Bag End before his friends returned. But as he came around the curve of the hill, he saw to his dismay that they were already there, gathered outside the front door to wait for him.

As he went up the steps, Sam came forward anxiously. "Frodo, where've you been?"

"Sam, please don't fuss. I'm fine. I had to go to the Old Place to speak to Milo-"

"Didn't you hear?" asked Pippin.

"Hear what?" As Frodo looked from one to the other in confusion, he felt a chill run up his spine. "What's happened?"

"It was all over the Bywater market today," Sam told him.

"And in Hobbiton too," said Pippin. "There's been a body found up by Needlehole."

"Lotho-?"

Merry shook his head. "No, not Lotho."

"It's Daisy Puddlesby," said Sam. "They found her this morning lying under a hedgerow in one of the lanes near her family farm. She's been strangled."
Chapter 18 by Kathryn Ramage
Their investigation had been half a game until then. Even as they searched for clues to Lotho's whereabouts, none of the hobbits, not even Frodo, truly believed he had come to harm. But now someone was dead--not Lotho, but it seemed obvious to them all that there must be a connection between his disappearance and Daisy's murder.

No one had much appetite for dinner that evening, and they sat up afterwards, putting together the information they had gathered, until the hour grew late and Sam told Frodo to go to bed. Frodo went, but tossed miserably through the night.

He dropped off only once, and dreamed of Hobbiton in ruins. In his dream, he stood at the foot of the hill beneath Bag End, looking up; the green slopes and familiar gardens were torn up and muddy, and a dozen ugly, ill-built wooden sheds with tar roofs cluttered the hillside. When he turned, he saw to his further horror that the bungalows in Bagshot Row were gone, replaced by a gravel pit. The hedgerows along the old lane had been torn up and the tall row of chestnut trees too was gone. Even the Party Tree had been cut down! There were piles of rubbish everywhere, and the sky was dark and overcast with plumes of black smoke.

Frodo went up to the house. The flower beds that lay beneath the windows had been trampled into mud, but the sheds were set so close to Bag End that they blocked the sunlight in any case; no flowers could possibly grow. The bench by the door had been broken into a pile of rubble, and the round door itself was hanging loose on its hinges, its green paint faded, dirt-spattered, and scarred. The bell-chain dangled loose.

He heard Sam's voice nearby him: This is worse than Mordor!

And he started awake with a soft cry.

Sam immediately woke as well. "What it is?" he asked as he sat up and quickly gathered Frodo into his arms. "It's not-?"

"No," Frodo answered. "I'm all right, Sam. It was nothing but a silly dream." Nevertheless, the horrific images from his dream remained with him as vividly as if they had been real, and he took comfort in the security of Sam's embrace; he nestled closer and shut his eyes, but knew he would not sleep again this night.

"I want you to stop this investigating, Frodo," Sam told him sternly. "You're pushing yourself too hard and getting close to one of your bad spells, and I won't have it. It's gone beyond us now. It's not just Mr. Lotho being missing anymore--it's murder. We ought to leave it to the shirriffs to find out who killed poor Daisy. It's their job, not ours."

Frodo sighed. He knew that Sam was right. He didn't want to push himself into another bad spell--and yet he was reluctant to give up when the matter was so important. It was murder. If he could do something to see justice done for the dead girl, then he had to do it.

When he opened his eyes, he saw that a grayish light was visible outside the window; it must be near daybreak. Leaving Sam's arms, he got out of bed and pulled on his robe. He went into the kitchen, Sam following drowsily, and found that his cousins were also up.

"Couldn't you sleep either?" Frodo asked them.

"No," answered Merry. He was crouched at the stove, poking the low, red embers back into flame. "We've been lying awake for hours, and thought it was about time for breakfast."

"We might as well have it early," Frodo agreed, "especially if Sam's to ride up to Needlehole to see the Puddlesbys."

Sam stared at him. "You still want me to go?"

"Yes, of course. I will stop the investigation, Sam, if you'll do this one last thing. Your errand is more urgent than ever now."

"But I shouldn't leave you," Sam protested. "Not after the bad night you just had. What if you have another of your spells while I'm away?"

"Sam, I want you to go," Frodo insisted. "You're the only one of us who knows the Puddlesby family. They'll talk to you as they wouldn't to strangers. If there is a connection between Lotho and Daisy's death, then we'll tell the shirriffs what we've learned, and I will have finished. Will you do this, please? I'll be all right while you're gone. I'll rest."

"We'll look after him and see that he does," Merry promised.

Sam didn't like it, but he could not refuse Frodo's request; he could never refuse Frodo anything. "All right," he consented reluctantly, "I'll go, but I'm not leaving without having a bite of breakfast first--and seeing you have some too." He shooed Merry away from the stove to get started.

After they finished their breakfasts and saw Sam off on his journey, the three remaining hobbits sat around the kitchen table talking.

"Did Lotho do it?" Pippin wondered. The question had been in all their minds since the night before; they had skirted the idea during their discussions, but no one had said it so bluntly before. "I hate to think of any hobbit committing murder. Oh- I know," He glanced from one cousin to the other. "We've all seen worse. Done worse. But this was a harmless girl, killed for no reason. Can there be such evil in the Shire? I can't imagine any hobbit being so deliberately cruel, not even Pimple."

"If what Ted Sandyman told Sam is true, I believe it," said Merry. "A hobbit who'd want to run everything and clutter up the Shire with all kinds of gears and machines might very well get rid of a girl he was fond of if she stood in his way. Remember Isengard, Pip? Can you imagine the Shire like that?

Pippin imagined it, and shuddered.

"You never saw Isengard, Frodo," Merry turned to him and explained. "It was a wretched place. Saruman had cut down all the trees and burnt them to power filthy machines that fouled the water and spit black smoke into the air. He'd made what was once a garden into a pile of metal and sooty muck."

"Like a little piece of Mordor," Frodo murmured. "I did see the Shire like that, once, in a vision." He had never forgotten the horrifying picture he'd seen in the Lady Galadriel's mirror. His dream last night had surely been an echo of it, perhaps brought on by the things Sam had said about Lotho's plans.

Was that vision a portend of what might be if he failed in his quest? Frodo thought so. He'd been greatly relieved when he'd come home last autumn to find that this dreadful future had not come to pass; the Shire was as green and unchanged as the day he had left it.

He was so lost in his own thoughts that he ceased to follow his cousins' conversation, until he heard:

"You know they never found him."

"Found who?"

"Saruman."

"I thought he was dead!" cried Pippin. "We saw him fall from the tower."

"You didn't hear what Treebeard was telling Gandalf afterwards? No, you were too busy wanting to get your hands on that magical seeing-stone again. Saruman fell, but when they went looking for his body in the water, they couldn't find it! He just disappeared. And then that sneaking, nasty snake of a Man who was with him escaped from the tower in all the excitement, and no one knows where he's gone to. They might've run off together."

"Yes, but without his powers, Saruman couldn't do much harm."

"He could still do harm," said Frodo. "It doesn't take a wizard's powers to work great evil."

"Do you think Pimple was planning to do the same here--tear down the trees, put in those machines, and make everything filthy?" asked Pippin.

"I can only think that he doesn't realize what he's doing," Frodo answered contemplatively. "He wants to be in charge of things, put in 'improvements' and remake the Shire into what he thinks it ought to be, but he hasn't seen his ideas to their true ends... as we have."

They were jolted then by a loud rap on the front door, and a strident voice cried out: "Frodo Baggins! Answer the door! You can't hide away. I know you're in there!"

It was Lobelia. No one was surprised that she'd come to bother Frodo, only that she had taken so long to do so.

"I'll go," Merry offered, rising from his seat at the table. "I promised Sam I'd look out for you, Frodo, and nothing's more likely to give you a bad turn than facing Lobelia."

He went out to meet her, closing the door behind himself. "Good morning, Aunt Lobelia! What brings you here so early in the day?"

"Merry Brandybuck!" Lobelia spit the name. "I thought you were in gaol. It's a fitting place for the likes of you. Now let me by! I mean to see Frodo." She raised the umbrella that she always carried, rain or shine, and brandished it as if she meant to skewer him if he dared stand in her way.

Merry stood his ground. "Frodo is too ill to receive visitors," he informed her.

"'Too ill,' my foot! He's no more ill than I am. I know for a fact that he's been to Dora's a half-dozen times this past week."

"Twice, actually," said Merry. "What d'you want to see him about?"

"Never you mind, nosy! That's my own affair."

"It's my affair too. I'm looking after Frodo, seeing that he isn't disturbed during his recuperation, and you'll have to tell me what your business is before I decide whether or not you can see him." He had no intention of allowing the vicious old biddy near Frodo, but he was curious to hear what she was after and knew that Frodo would wonder too.

Lobelia fumed, but soon realized that Merry was not going to let her pass. "I want to know what you boys are up to," she snapped resentfully. "I hear you've been making mischief, going around town and trying to dig up all sorts of ugly gossip and lies about my Lotho. It's his doing, isn't it? He's the one behind it, and I mean to put a stop to it. If Frodo Baggins thinks he can divert attention from himself by looking for scandals to blacken my son's name, then I tell you he thinks wrongly! I won't stand for it."

"We weren't looking for scandals," said Merry. "We were looking for clues to Lotho's whereabouts. Frodo wants him found just as badly as you do... although not for the same reasons." He smiled. "But if you want it stopped, then you'll be happy to hear that Frodo's decided to stop this very morning." He was surprised to see how eagerly Lobelia's expression brightened at this information.

"Then he knows where Lotho is?" she cried. "Has he known all along? I vow that if he's responsible for what's happened to Lotho-"

"Rubbish," Merry replied. "You know perfectly well he isn't. You only told the sherriffs so because you want to make trouble for him." He was being obnoxiously rude--which was not how he'd been brought up to treat old ladies--but there was really no other way to deal with Lobelia. "If I were you, Auntie, I wouldn't go around accusing anybody of making away with Pimple. You ought to be more worried about who he's done away with himself."

She gaped at him. "What do you mean by that, Merry Brandybuck? What sort of dirt have you dug up?"

"Well, it was his sweetheart, wasn't it, who was strangled? Did you tell the shirriffs about that?"

Lobelia's mouth popped open, then closed again.

"And what about you, Aunt Lobelia?" Merry pressed on. "If this Daisy Puddlesby was going to marry Lotho, doesn't that give you a mighty good reason to put a stop to it?"

"How dare you, you- you-" Lobelia sputtered furiously, but could not think of anything bad enough. At last, finding no words to express her outrage, she swung her umbrella at Merry's head--he ducked quickly to avoid the blow--and then she turned and stormed away.

After Lobelia had gone, Merry returned to Bag End's kitchen.

"You got off lucky, Frodo," Merry told him. "Seeing Lobelia Sackville-Baggins is enough to give anyone a bad turn."

"What did she want?" asked Frodo.

"To tell you to stop digging up stories about how awful her son is. I told her that we'd stop looking for him."

"Does she know where he is?" Pippin wondered.

Merry shook his head. "I'll wager that she has no better idea of where Pimple is than anybody else. Now that I've spoken to her, I'm quite sure she doesn't know what's going on either."
Chapter 19 by Kathryn Ramage
Before he visited the Puddlesbys, Sam first stopped by his brother Halfred's farm. As a neighbor to the Puddlesbys, Halfred would know something of their situation and Sam could ask him some of the questions he might have asked them, without imposing too much on a family who had just lost a daughter. If there was local gossip about Lotho and Daisy, Halfred would have heard it. He would also know the exact whereabouts of the Burrows-owned farmland.

Halfred told Sam that he'd seen Lotho around Needlehole once or twice in the past year--having spent his boyhood in Hobbiton, he knew Lotho by sight--but had heard no gossip connecting Lotho with Daisy Puddlesby. The Puddlesbys' eldest daughter was said to be "troublesome" of late; Halfred gathered that this trouble was over some improper suitor the girl had been keeping company with, but if that suitor had been Lotho, he'd never heard a whisper of it.

When he left his brother, Sam next went to have a look at the farmland that had caused so much contention. Some of the fields were in obvious use, freshly tilled and planted, or cows were pastured, but the house, when he found it, was empty. Sam peeked in at the broken windows and tried the front door, then ventured inside the dilapidated barn, but he saw no sign that anyone had been living there. It looked as if the place had not been touched in years.

Only then, after these preliminaries had been completed, did Sam go to the Puddlesby farm. Even though Frodo had sent him specially to ask them about Daisy, he was reluctant to intrude. He knew the family very slightly, to say "hello" to while visiting his brother, and knocked on their door with great diffidence.

To his relief, they were not surprised nor suspicious at seeing him. In fact, they seemed to think it only natural that he should come to pay his respects while he was in the neighborhood. He was welcomed in by Mrs. Puddlesby, who was tearful, and by her husband, who looked angry. The farmhouse only had one parlor, where Daisy had been laid out; after a brief viewing of the body, they took him into the kitchen, where they had received previous visitors that day--neighbors and friends who had also come to offer condolences.

"Funeral's tomorrow," Mrs. Puddlesby informed Sam. "If you're still at your brother's tomorrow, you're welcome to attend."

"No'm, I'm only here for today." Sam expressed his sincerest sympathies on the loss of their daughter, then added, "And I hope they find the one who did this as soon as ever they can. Do your sherriffs know who it was yet?" It was not an unusual question under the circumstances, but since he had an ulterior motive, he felt duplicitous asking it.

"They don't know," Farmer Puddlesby answered scornfully, "but I could tell you, same as I told them. It's that Mr. Sackville-Baggins."

"Lotho Sackville-Baggins?" Sam echoed; he had been struggling to find some way of bringing up the subject of Lotho gracefully, and was surprised that the name should be mentioned so soon.

"He took our lass away," Mrs. Puddlesby confirmed, her eyes filling with fresh tears, "and for no honorable reason, though you couldn't tell Daisy that, poor, foolish creature! We reckon she was going to him when she met her fate."

"But how can that be?" asked Sam. "He's been missing for days."

"Missing!" Puddlesby snorted. "That's what the sherriffs said, but we know just where he is--where he always stays when he comes to see our Daisy. He's been holed up at the old Sackville home."

"The Sackville home?" Sam was growing more astonished by the minute. "Now how d'you know that?"

"Daisy wouldn't tell us where she was going," said Mrs. Puddlesby, "but we guessed as much. Sackville's not three miles away on the Marsh road. He never came here but once, but we always knew when he was staying hereabouts. Daisy would go up and back that way often enough when she had no other reason."

"Aye," her husband agreed. "And if you ask the folk around Sackville, they'll tell you that somebody's been staying up at the old house for weeks now. Who else could it be?"

"Didn't he mean to marry her?" asked Sam.

"He said he did," Mrs. Puddlesby answered, "but we had our doubts."

Farmer Puddlesby nodded sagely. "Fine folk the likes of Mr. Sackville-Baggins wouldn't marry a farm-lass, but you can be sure he meant to have her just the same."

"I heard he was buying that empty farm next over, where you rent the land from the Bagginses and Burrowses, for her," Sam said, feeling duplicitous again.

Both the Puddlesbys looked surprised and curious. "Who told you that?"

"That's the talk around Hobbiton. He's after that farm, isn't he?"

"He's after it, to be sure," Farmer Puddlesby replied. "But if you ask me about it, Sam Gamgee, he didn't want it to set up a home for Daisy. He wanted it for us."

Sam didn't understand. "What? You mean he was going to give it to you?"

"Naught so generous as that! He meant to be our landlord on it. He'd raise our rents, you see, or give over all the land we wanted, if we'd give over Daisy."

"She was of an age to do as she pleased," said Mrs. Puddlesby, "but she would never go where we didn't give our blessings just the same." Tears had brimmed her reddened eyes throughout the conversation, and at this point they began to spill over; she quickly pulled a crumpled handkerchief from the pocket of her apron, and turned away. Sam felt he had pried more than enough. He thanked them for receiving him and left them to grieve in private.

Once he left the Puddlesby farm, Sam took the Marsh road to Sackville. The village of Sackville was no more than a few cottages clustered around a crossroad and a common green with a well. The manor house lay high above it, under the top of a hill that overlooked the Rushock Marsh on one side, and was screened from the view of the villagers by a tall hedge and a grove of trees on the other.

Sam left his pony at the village green and ventured up the hill to the house. In spite of the reports of occupancy, it did not look lived in. The windows were shuttered, and tall weeds grew in the garden and in the untrimmed grass on the roof. It looked far worse than the empty farmhouse he had explored earlier in the day, for it had obviously once been a grand place. Now, it not only had a desolate look of utter abandonment, but the faint stink of a rubbish heap. Sam found it hard to believe that anything but rats had lived in the house for years.

As he stood under the trees by the rusted gate, he was briefly tempted to go up and knock on the front door to see if Lotho answered, but an inner warning stayed him. He suddenly felt how very isolated he was here. If there was a murderer inside this house, anything might happen to him... and no one would know. He hadn't brought a sword with him on this journey, nor even a pocket-knife, and no one was closer than the village below to come to his aid.

Sam stepped quickly back beneath the cover of the trees and glanced at the shuttered windows on either side of the door, wondering if there might be someone behind them, peering out at him. He retreated, continuing to walk backwards until he was a safe distance from the house, then he turned to flee down the slope.
Chapter 20 by Kathryn Ramage
It was twilight when Sam reached Hobbiton. While he was anxious to return to Frodo, he also wanted to stop after his long ride and take a minute or two to collect himself before going home. It had been hours since he'd left the old Sackville house, but his visit to it still disturbed him. A half-pint of ale seemed the best measure to settle his disquiet, and after he'd left his pony to be tended at the stable, the lights of the Green Dragon shimmering across the Bywater Pool beckoned him welcomingly.

As Sam entered the tavern, Robin Smallburrows, who was at his usual table near the bar, lifted a mug to him. "How's your investigation for Mr. Frodo coming along, Sam?" he asked in friendly greeting. "Ours hasn't turned up much. I heard tell that Mrs. Lobelia was at the Chief's house this morning, raising the biggest stink over how little we'd done to find her poor Lotho. She wanted to have the whole lot of you up at Bag End arrested--she said you knew more'n you was telling. Do you, Sam? What have you found?"

"As a matter o' fact, I just learned something that might do you some good to know, Robin. Mrs. Lobelia too, though that's only as an aside." Sam sat down, and told Robin what the Puddlesbys had told him about Lotho and the abandoned Sackville place.

When he finished, Robin nodded solemnly. "I'll tell the sherriffs up at Nobottle about it. After that girl's been killed, I expect they want to get hold of Mr. Lotho more'n we ever did." Then he scowled at Sam. "How comes it that no one told me about Mr. Lotho and this Puddlesby girl before? We asked up Needlehole-way about Lotho Sackville-Baggins after he went missing, but this is the first I ever heard he was courting any girl, let alone the one who was murdered. You knew about it."

"I thought you'd heard," said Sam, embarrassed. "It's common gossip."

"Gossip, maybe, but not common," Robin grumbled. "And who listens to every tale about some gent having his fun with the likes of us? Here, Sam, you'd tell me whatever you found out, wouldn't you?"

"Yes," Sam assured him, "anything that's got to do with Mr. Lotho's being missing." He would have told Robin all he had learned right then: about Lad's and Milo's fights with Lotho, about Lotho's threats against young Sancho Proudfoot, about the things Ted Sandyman had told him--everything except the way the Gaffer had wielded his spade like a dagger when he'd demonstrated how he'd driven Lotho out of the dooryard. He held back only because he thought that Frodo would probably want to keep some secrets too. They'd talk it over tonight, and he'd let Frodo decide what to say before they went to the Chief Shirriff in Bywater.

He left Robin to get his much-needed half-pint of ale. Rosie, who was at the bar, took his pennies and turned to fill a mug without saying more than, "Hullo, Sam," but Sam had been aware of her eyes on him since he'd come in. She seemed troubled.

When he took his ale from her and prepared to turn away, she put one hand on his arm. "Wait a moment, Sam," she said, and glanced quickly around the room; there was no one nearer than Robin to overhear, and Robin tactfully turned his back to them. "I've been meaning to ask you... It's about Mr. Frodo." Her cheeks colored slightly, and Sam braced himself. "You care very much for him, don't you?"

"Yes, that's right," he answered carefully.

Rosie leaned over the bar toward him and lowered her voice. "I've heard stories, Sam--jokes and such-like from my brothers and the lads that come here. But I was thinking, it's no joke." Her color heightened, but she kept her eyes earnestly on his. This was not an easy thing for her to say, but she meant to say it. "I was thinking, it must be so. He's the one for you. You'd've spoke to me by now if you was free to. Is it true, Sam?"

"It's true," Sam confirmed. He had been avoiding her, in hopes that it would be easier than hurting her with a blunt rejection, but now that Rosie had asked him directly, he had to be honest. "I love him."

He remembered what Frodo had told him that day at Brandy Hall. Sam could see him clearly, sitting up in bed the morning after his last bad turn, brushing toast crumbs from his bare chest as he said: If you want to marry Rosie, and if she is agreeable and understands how it is between you and me... Well, I wouldn't mind.

What if he were to say it, as Frodo had said he might? Very well, then; he would. "I love him," he repeated, "and the girl I marry--if ever I was to marry--has to understand that."

Rosie drew back and frowned at him. "You think you're so grand a prize, Sam Gamgee, that a girl'd put up with sharing just to have you?"

Sam blushed hotly. "No. I'm only saying it's so." He'd known it was impossible all along; it was too much to ask any woman to share her husband with someone else. By telling her, he was not giving conditions under which he would marry her, but explaining why he never would. "I'm sweet on you, Rose--you know I am--but I won't quit loving Frodo, and I won't give him up. It's the way it's got to be. You see that?"

Rosie nodded. "I see that, Sam." She cast her eyes down then.

"You won't have to wait on me anymore, wondering why."

"No-"

There was a sudden burst of laughter and gleeful shouting at the tavern door as a group of farmlads who had finished with their day's work came in, Tom and Nibs among them. Sam picked up his mug and quickly stepped away from the bar and Rosie, but not before her brothers spotted him.

"Sam!" cried Tom as he broke away from the group and came forward, grinning. "Why, what's this?" he looked from Sam to Rose, who had busied herself with wiping down the bar; both their faces were still flushed. "You haven't been trifling with my sister, have you?"

"Are you leading poor Rosie on with promises?" teased Nibs as he joined them. "When are you going to put an end to this shilly-shally and marry her, Sam?"

"Oh, he's never going to," Tom laughed. "Didn't you know? Sam's got his eye on somebody else. His heart belongs to his Mr. Frodo. He's pretty as any girl, and Sam'll never find a wife half as rich."

Sam had never liked this type of japery, even where there was nothing behind it--and that such a joke should be made now at both Frodo's and Rosie's expense seemed intolerable.

"Enough!" he shouted, grabbing Tom and giving him a hard shake. "I won't stand for that kind of talk, not even from you! You'll get a knock on the nose if you don't keep your tom-fool mouth shut!"

The laughter stopped. Robin leapt up from the table to take Sam by the arm. "Let go of him, Sam," he said gently but insistently as he tried to pull his friend away. "Let's have no brawls." To Tom and Nibs, he added, "You lads'd go too far one day--I always said so. Take it back, Tom. Say you're sorry."

"He didn't mean it, Sam." Nibs was trying to work Sam's fingers loose from Tom's shirt-front. "It's only a joke."

"Only a joke!" Tom echoed, squeaking in alarm. "Nought to take up so hot about!"

Sam let go, shoving Tom back as he did so. "Just mind you keep your mouth shut."

Robin, who still had a hold on Sam's arm, drew him back to their table. The excitement over, the rest of the tavern's patrons returned to their own business, with some curious murmurs. Tom stood where he'd been, shaken. Nibs went to the bar to get another ale to replace the one Sam had dropped; he whispered to Rosie, and she vehemently shook her head.

"There now," Robin said as he made Sam sit down. "You mustn't mind so much. They don't mean a thing by it, Sam. No one does. It's only what they'd say of any handsome young gentleman like Mr. Frodo, living alone as he does, with a devoted servant looking after him. You know you're devoted to him, Sam--you can't deny it. You see how folk'd smile at that, don't you, and pass remarks even if there's nothing in it? Now if Mr. Frodo was to marry-"

"Or you did, Sam," Nibs added eagerly as he brought over the fresh mug of ale. "It'd put a stop to all such talk right away."

"There wouldn't be no talk if it weren't for the likes of you, going around telling your 'jokes,'" said Sam. He was sure that all this gossip had begun with them.

"But we didn't mean it," Tom protested pleadingly. "'Twas only in fun."

"Whether you meant it or no, it's all over town, and I'm sick of hearing it."

"Why don't you ask Rosie to marry you, Sam?" Nibs persisted. "She likes you. She'd say 'yes'--wouldn't you, Rose?" He turned to his sister, who had been observing the entire scene.

"I expect that's between me 'n' Sam," replied Rosie. "If he wants to ask me, he will. If he doesn't, that's none of your concern, Nibs Cotton."

As Sam sipped his ale, he met Rosie's eyes in gratitude. He felt sure that she would keep their conversation to herself, and not go around spreading worse gossip; Rosie was just that sort. He was sorry that he couldn't do as she wanted, and as her brothers obviously expected him to, but it was no more fair to ask a girl to marry him to keep down the gossip than it was to ask her to share him as a husband.
Chapter 21 by Kathryn Ramage
When Sam returned to Bag End, Frodo was in the study; he had filled several pages of the Red Book with his small, neat handwriting, but as Sam came to the study door behind him, he set his quill down and turned, smiling.

"Sam!" Frodo left the desk to throw his arms around Sam's neck and bestow a quick peck on the cheek. "I'm glad you're back."

Sam was glad to be home too after his long, wearisome day, and he squeezed Frodo tightly and gave him another kiss before he asked, "What this about Mrs. Lobelia wanting us all arrested? She hasn't been making more trouble, has she?"

"Oh, she came by this morning, but Merry met her at the door and sent her off. Otherwise, it's been very quiet. No one's come to arrest us."

"Now I'm home, I'd best get dinner started..." but even as he said it, Sam became aware of the smell of roasting chicken coming from the kitchen.

"We knew you'd be home late, so Pip and Merry are making dinner tonight," Frodo explained. Sam looked alarmed at the prospect, and Frodo laughed. "They've been living on their own for months now, making their own meals. I'm sure they're capable of cooking something edible." Arm in arm, they went to the kitchen.

The chicken was not cooked the way Sam would have done it, but he grudgingly admitted that it made a respectable dinner. Over dinner, he told the others what he'd discovered during his day's travels.

"I know something of the old Sackville home," Frodo said when Sam had finished. "It's family history. It belonged to Lotho's grandmother Camellia. She was the last of the Sackvilles, which was why her husband, Longo Baggins, took the name at their marriage. The house has fallen out of use since their deaths. I think Otho used to rent it, but he and Lobelia never lived there. Lobelia never liked it." He chuckled. "All this time, we've been paying too much attention to the wrong piece of property. It isn't that farmland of Peony's--it's the Old Sackville Place!" He turned to Sam. "Could Lotho have been there in hiding all this time?"

"According to the folk in the village, somebody's been staying up there since before Mr. Lotho went missing," Sam told him.

"But you didn't see anyone?"

Sam shook his head. He hadn't told the others how unsettled he'd felt standing before the abandoned house; now that he was safely home, he felt he'd been nervous and silly over nothing.

"And yet the Puddlesbys sounded quite certain that it was where Lotho was," Frodo mused, "and where Daisy was going to--or coming from--when she was killed."

"Did you believe them, Sam?" asked Merry. "I mean, about their daughter and Lotho? It casts that whole love-affair in an entirely different light... and not a very pretty one."

"I never thought they made it up, if that's what you mean," said Sam. "They truly believed it's what Mr. Lotho was after. Whether it was so-" He shrugged. "We don't know Mr. Lotho's mind."

"We know it well enough that it certainly seems possible," Frodo replied. "But I must admit I'm rather sorry to hear it. I would have liked to believe that even as miserable a creature as Lotho Sackville-Baggins was capable of one honest feeling."

"So what do we do now?" asked Pippin.

"Nothing," Frodo answered. "I promised I'd stop my investigation once Sam did this one last thing for me... and he has, quite satisfactorily." He smiled across the table. "Thank you, Sam."

"But what about the Sackville place?" Pippin persisted. "Aren't we going to go have another look?"

"I stopped to tell Robin--Shirriff Smallburrows--about the old place on my way home," Sam told him. He was immensely gratified by Frodo's praise; it made his whole day's travails worthwhile. "Don't you worry. They'll look into it. Anyways, our part's over and done with. It's up to the sherriffs to find Mr. Lotho now."




The next morning passed quietly. Frodo wrote, Merry and Pippin were put to work making notes on their own adventures, and Sam did a little gardening--but they each kept an ear out for a knock on the front door, as if they were waiting for some news to arrive.

News arrived just after lunch-time, when Robin Smallburrows came to Bag End's door and, cap in his hands, asked to speak to Sam. He was disconcerted when not only Sam, but Frodo came to the door, and the other two gentlehobbits remained in the entrance hall, all hanging on what he had to say.

"I didn't wish to disturb you, Mr. Baggins, but I thought as Sam'd want to know." He addressed Sam: "I sent word to Chief Shirriff Thistletoes at Nobottle, like I said I would. I said they ought to go have a look 'round Sackville."

"And did they find Lotho?" asked Frodo.

"They found him," Robin replied grimly, "but not at the Old Sackville Place. The shirriffs up there sent someone 'round the day before yesterday, after Farmer Puddlesby told 'em the same thing he told you, Sam, but the Old Place was locked up tight and there wasn't no sign of 'm anywhere. They found him last night in the Rushock marsh. Mr. Lotho was in the water, with a rope 'round his neck tied to a mill grindstone. They say as he must've thrown himself in, over that poor Puddlesby girl." The shirriff shook his head. "Well, we needn't trouble you again, Mr. Baggins. There's an end to it."
Chapter 22 by Kathryn Ramage
Lotho's body was sent back to Lobelia the next day for burial. In light of the dead hobbit's disgrace, there was only to be a small, private funeral. That afternoon, Frodo got out his best black coat with the velvet collar--the same one as he had worn to his cousin Berilac's funeral--in order to pay a visit to his dearly disliked aunt.

"You're sure you want to do this?" Sam asked as he helped Frodo into his coat and brushed it down.

Frodo nodded. "I have to." This was not simply a condolence call. Lotho's death had officially concluded the whole business neatly... and yet Frodo did not think it was truly the end. An idea had been forming in his mind since Robin Smallburrows had brought them the news--a terrible suspicion--and this visit was the only way he could settle the question to his own satisfaction.

"You said you were through with investigating," Sam said reproachfully.

"If I'm wrong, I am done. If I'm right--well, we'll see. In any case, it won't tire me to walk over to Lobelia's," he tried to reassure Sam. "It isn't far, and I won't be gone long."

"Would like us to come with you?" Merry offered.

"No, thank you. I'd better do this alone." Frodo left Bag End, walking down the lane to the Sackville-Baggins smial.

Lobelia answered the door. She was wearing the dourest of black dresses, and a hat with a veil of black netting that fell over her red-rimmed eyes. "Frodo Baggins!" she cried at the sight of him, as if, of all Hobbiton, he was the very last person she expected to find on her doorstep. "Come to pay your respects, have you? You had no respect for my poor Lotho when he was living. None of you did!"

"It's true that I never got along with Lotho, as you well know," Frodo agreed politely. "Nevertheless, I'm sorry that he should end this way. I didn't wish for his death."

Lobelia looked surprised at this, but accepted it.

"May I come in, please, Aunt Lobelia? I'd like to view him." This was an accepted hobbit funerary tradition; unless there was some injury that made viewing the body impossible, or one was particularly squeamish, callers were expected to look upon the deceased one last time to make their farewells.

After a moment's hesitation, Lobelia nodded and opened the door a little wider to admit him. "It's decent of you to come," she said grudgingly as Frodo entered the front hall. "Precious few have."

Frodo wondered how many others had paid condolence calls, or would attend the funeral. Lotho had never been well-liked by his family or neighbors, but under normal circumstances, that would not have kept people away. To die an apparent suicide after murdering his farmgirl mistress, however, was enough to make him a pariah.

"They think he killed that girl," Lobelia went on as they went down the darkened hallway, as if her thoughts were following the same path as Frodo's. "That's what they're all saying. That Brandybuck cousin of yours said so--said it to my face!"

"Yes, I know. I'm sorry."

When they reached the closed door to the best parlor, Lobelia stopped and opened it.

The body was laid out on a bier on a table placed at the center of the room, with a single candle lit above the head. Lotho had been washed and his unruly hair combed down neatly. His face was pale and smoothed of all scowls; expressionless, it was strangely soft-looking, as if it were a mask shaped of wax rather than flesh. He had been dressed in his finest suit, and wore a shirt with a high collar and a white stock tied loosely around his neck to hide the mark of the rope.

"You see, there's nothing unsightly," said Lobelia. "He looks quite peaceful. I can almost believe he's only asleep..." Overcome with tears, she quickly excused herself in a choked voice, and went out.

Once she had gone and he was alone with Lotho, Frodo stepped closer to the bier and delicately touched, then tugged down on the stock and collar. He wouldn't have dared to do it if he didn't already have a good idea of what he might find: The bruise of the rope made a dark line across the waxy-white skin of Lotho's throat. And above and below this line were fainter purple marks, broad circles that looked like the fingertips of large hands had pressed into the flesh. Some of them even had scratches, as if fingernails had broken the skin.

With equal care, he tugged Lotho's collar back into place and left the parlor. Lobelia stood farther down the hallway, sobbing into her handkerchief, but at the sound of the parlor door opening, she quickly blotted her tears.

"I don't like you, Frodo Baggins," she told him bluntly. "I never have and I never will. You took what should have been rightfully my husband's property when Bilbo adopted you. I can't forgive him or you for that. But it doesn't matter anymore, now that my Lotho's gone. All I've ever done was to try to give him what he deserved." She turned her tearful eyes to him. "Who am I going to leave my things to? I'll have to shut up this house after the funeral and go away. I'll have to stay with my sister in Hardbottle, where the scandal isn't so awful."

"I'm very sorry," Frodo said softly, letting her less kind remarks about him pass without comment. Lobelia was right about one thing; the quarrel between them didn't matter anymore. "I wish there was something I could do about the scandal. Will you answer one question for me, please?" he requested. "I've been told that Lotho had gone out of Hobbiton on mysterious trips several times before he disappeared, but he wrote to you. You knew where he was then. Will you tell me? Was it Sackville?"

"No!" Lobelia replied vehemently. "Is that the sort of awful story you've been digging up about him? Why did you have to go poking into Lotho's private affairs?"

Frodo didn't answer this. "I think," he replied instead, "that it would have turned out just the same even if I'd never been involved. Will you answer? It may help."

Lobelia looked as if she doubted this at first, but after considering him carefully, she answered, "He never went to Sackville. If he did, he didn't tell me. He was in the Southfarthing, overseeing the pipeleaf farm his father left him. That's where his letters always came from. He didn't do it, Frodo," she insisted. "My Lotho didn't kill himself, and he didn't kill that girl." She spoke defiantly, but there was an odd note of pleading in her voice as well, as if she were hoping against hope that what she said was true.

Frodo answered her honestly, "I don't believe so either."

Lobelia stared at him in surprise, but when she saw that he wasn't joking or trying to placate her, she nodded, then turned to the front door to show him out. At the door, she said, "Thank you for coming, Frodo. I'm... touched that you did." It was the first completely sincere and civil thing she had ever said to him.
Chapter 23 by Kathryn Ramage
"Perhaps Lotho made those marks himself," Frodo told the others after he returned home and described what he'd seen. "He might've regretted throwing himself into the marsh, and clawed at the rope to try and free himself at the last minute. Or else, someone throttled him, then dragged him to the marsh, tied the rope with the millstone around his neck, and tossed him in. But who could have done it?"

Their investigation had been revived, but they were back at the beginning again with the same questions: Who had quarreled with Lotho? Who would want to be rid of him badly enough to kill him?

They gathered in the sitting room to go over it all.

"I'll need better proof than those finger-marks if I'm to go to the sherriffs," said Frodo. "It'll have to be something extremely convincing to have them look any further into Lotho's death. They're satisfied with the solution they have and consider the matter closed. I still believe that Lotho must've been hiding at the Old Sackville Place. The question we must consider is 'Who could have gone up there?'"

"It's twenty miles or more," Sam contributed, "and on winding roads 'round the marsh. It'd take the better part of a day to ride there and back again."

Frodo nodded in agreement. "Exactly! Surely someone would have noticed if one of our suspects had been gone from Hobbiton for so long. We ought to find out if anyone's been absent."

"They might've ridden up at night," Merry suggested. "They must've taken him to Rushock Marsh by night--that sort of thing would draw attention in bright daylight!"

"Yes, that's true," Frodo conceded, "but whatever the case, I think we have to assume that the person who killed Lotho knew where he'd been all this time, and went straight there to find him and kill him."

"Who knew?" asked Pippin.

Frodo paced the rug at the center of the room and thought about this. "Milo might've," he answered at last. "He was in that part of the Westfarthing before, not very long ago, and knows his way about. He's the only one we know of who's spoken to members of the Puddlesby family, and he might've heard about the Old Sackville Place from them."

"He's got that fast, new pony who could take him up and back very quickly," said Merry.

"He fought with Lotho just last week," Frodo continued. He had believed Milo's story when he'd first heard it, but now... now, he didn't know what to think. "And he has the best reason of anybody to be rid of Lotho: now that Lotho's dead, all Milo's debts are canceled."

As he spoke, he ran his fingers through his hair and began to pace more rapidly. He was clearly growing upset as he considered the idea that his cousin Milo was their most likely suspect.

Sam watched him with increasing concern and was ready to put his foot down and put a stop to this before Frodo worked himself into a bad state. "It mightn't be Mr. Milo," he said. "There's one more person you're forgetting--Farmer Puddlesby." To his relief, Frodo stopped pacing and turned toward him. "Remember now, he was the one to tell me where Mr. Lotho was, and he was sure that Lotho killed his Daisy. If Mr. Lotho did, her father'd be happy to do the same to him."

"You can say the same of Mrs. Puddlesby," said Pippin. "The two of them could've done it together. And what about Lad? He wasn't even in Hobbiton anymore. How do we know he went straight home to Michel Delving?"

"But what reason would Lad have to go so far to kill Lotho?" Merry asked. "Striking him down by accident in a fit of anger, I can see--but not riding up to Sackville days after their quarrel to murder him in cold blood. Besides, how did he know where Lotho was?"

"Milo might've told him," Pippin responded easily. "Or perhaps they were working together. They're very good friends, you know. Between the two of them and Peony and Jelly, there's plenty of reasons for wanting to get Lotho out of the way."

"None of 'em had any reason to murder poor Daisy," Sam reminded him, "nor any special reason to avenge her."

"That we know about," countered Pippin. "Maybe they knew her better than they've let on."

"And where on earth did that millstone come from?" wondered Merry. "There's no mill in Sackville, is there?"

"Ted Sandyman told me Lotho stole a grinding-stone from him," Sam said. "Could be the same one."

"If it was, then it must've been a suicide after all. Only, that means that Lotho planned it days ago, before he left Hobbiton... even before Daisy was dead." Merry began to look puzzled.

"What if somebody else took the millstone?" suggested Pippin. "Ted didn't see Pimple take it, did he? Anyone might've."

"Not the Puddlesbys. If they'd wanted a heavy stone, surely they wouldn't have come all this way to get one," said Merry. "And it couldn't be Lad--he certainly wasn't carrying any millstone with him when he left the Gammidges' farm. It must be Milo-"

As Frodo looked from one to the other, following their conversation, a desperately confused look came into his eyes. "Stop, please! I need to think," he announced abruptly. "Will you let me alone for awhile? I have to think the whole matter over, and come up with an answer by myself."

He retreated to his study and, for the rest of that afternoon, sat curled in a chair by the fire, smoking and thinking. He thought about their favored suspects--Milo and Lad, the Puddlesbys--and which of them might have done it, how, and when. He thought about the more obscure possibilities. Who else might have want Lotho out of the way? And why?

Then he began to consider everything they had learned about Lotho: where he'd been and what he'd been doing before he'd disappeared; what Lotho believed about the proper order of things; his efforts to acquire property, and what he planned to do with once it was in his hands.

Eventually, the room became so thickly filled with smoke that Sam went in to open the window and let some fresh air in.

"You'll be sick if you go on breathing this mess," he scolded as he picked up and waved the firescreen in an effort to send the smoke outside. "Have you come up with any answers yet?"

Frodo shook his head. "I've had some ideas... but they're too far-fetched and fanciful. They can't possibly be true."




Merry and Pippin had gone outside to allow Frodo to think in peace. They were reclined on the grassy slope of the hill, Merry flat on his back, smoking his own pipe, and Pippin propped on his elbows a few feet away with a single blade of glass held between his two upraised thumbs; he blew through it to make a sharply pitched whistle, then tried to play a tune before lowering his hands to grin at his cousin.

"This isn't the peaceful holiday we were hoping to have when we left Buckland, is it?"

Merry laughed.

"At least, we've had some fun investigating--'til it wound up in these murders. Poor Frodo's worked himself into a frazzle. Sam's getting ready to pop him into bed any minute."

"It's almost over now," Merry answered. "Let Frodo figure it out, and then we can all have a rest."

"Doesn't it seem funny that we're going through so much trouble over Pimple? I don't know who killed him, but I'm sure that whoever it was must've done it for the best of reasons."

"And what about that girl, Daisy?"

"Well..." Pippin grew more serious, "that must've been Pimple. Don't you think so? Maybe he took the millstone to drown her."

Merry did think this was the most likely answer. "But why-" He turned to Pippin, leaning up on one elbow, when he spotted a boy with bright coppery hair walking in the lane at the bottom of the hill. "Isn't that Sancho Proudfoot?" he asked, sitting upright.

Pippin twisted around to look over his shoulder. "It is!" He scrambled to his feet and waved. "Sancho!"

As they went down the slope toward him, the red-headed boy's eyes widened in alarm, and he flew off in the direction of his home. The two older hobbits sped down the lane after him. At a low break in the hedge, Sancho leapt over to run across the fields; Merry and Pippin leapt over as well and split up, each sweeping wide to circle Sancho from either side in hopes of driving him toward one or the other. The trick worked: As Pippin came rushing toward him, arms outstretched, the boy turned and fled--straight into Merry, who grabbed him by the arm.

"Let me go! Let me go!" Sancho squeaked, struggling frantically. "I'll tell my grandfather!"

"Hold still, Sancho," Merry told him. "No one's going to hurt you. We only want to talk."

"When did you get home?" asked Pippin, gasping for breath as he joined them. "I thought you'd been sent up to Brockenborings for your naughtiness."

"I came home last night," Sancho responded, still trying to pull himself free from Merry's grip. "Grandpa said it was all right, now that Lotho's gone."

"Stop fighting!" Merry ordered, giving him a shake. "I'll let you go soon enough, once you answer a few questions. Answer truthfully, and you can be on your way." Sancho stopped struggling. "Now, what were you doing around the Sackville-Baggins house?"

"Nothing! I haven't been near it, I swear!"

"Not today, silly! Before you were sent off. The day Pimple caught you at... well, whatever mischief you were up to."

"I didn't do anything," Sancho insisted. "All right--I had some firecrackers saved up. I meant to set them off down the chimney, but I never got to do it! When I got close to the house, I saw old Pimple had some company. I was creeping up to the drawing-room window to hear what they were saying, when they saw me. Pimple gave a shout and came outside, and I ran away as fast as I could with him right after me. That's all I did. I meant no harm!"

"Lotho had someone staying with him while his mother was gone?" Pippin asked eagerly. "Who was it? A girl?"

Sancho shook his head. "It wasn't a hobbit at all, boy or girl. It was one of the Big Folk. A Man in a long, black cloak."




"My imagination's been running wild lately," said Frodo. "I've been having weird dreams, weird thoughts. All sorts of peculiar fancies." When Sam came up behind his chair and put a hand on his shoulder, he reached up to put his own hand over it.

"You've let this prey too much on your mind," Sam told him. "I see how it's upsetting you."

"But you understand why I can't stop it now?"

"I see," Sam answered reluctantly, "but I'll be just as glad when this is all over and done with and we needn't give another thought to Lotho Sackville-Baggins. Will you go to the sherriffs when you know, even if it turns out to be Mr. Milo?"

"I don't know what I'm going to do," Frodo admitted. He leaned back a little, letting his head rest against Sam's chest. "I'd hate for Milo to be guilty--or any hobbit I know--but I can't pretend it isn't so, if it is. There has to be justice, even for Lotho." He shut his eyes. "I wish I could see the truth clearly."

Sam wrapped both arms around his collar and stood, head bent down over Frodo's, to kiss his upturned brow. "Whyn't you come have some dinner?" he offered. "You haven't had a bite to eat since luncheon, and you can't think proper with an empty stomach."

"And a head full of smoke?" Frodo opened his eyes and smiled up at him. "All right, Sam. I'll come eat, and let my head clear. Maybe then I'll find an answer."

"Maybe you'll see something you've missed before."

They heard Merry and Pippin shouting outside even before they left the study, but were in the hall on their way to the kitchen when the front door burst open and the other two came in.

"Frodo! We just talked to Sancho Proudfoot! Wait 'til you hear what he told us he saw in Lotho's house!"

"You'll never guess!"

Frodo listened as they repeated Sancho's story in a series of excited bursts, one hobbit interrupting the other. When he heard the description of Lotho's remarkable visitor, he suddenly went pale and seemed so unsteady on his feet that Sam reached out to catch him.

"Frodo, are you all right?" he asked in alarm.

"I'm fine, Sam... only, it looks as if my fanciful ideas weren't so very wrong after all." Then Frodo pulled himself together and drew away from Sam's outstretched hand. With his face set in an expression of grim determination, he turned to his cousins. "Have you brought your swords with you?"

"No," answered Merry in surprise, "just the Elven knives the Lady gave us. Why?"

"Because we are going to Sackville," Frodo announced, "and I expect there may be some danger. Sam, will you get our ponies from the stable?"

"Who is it then?" asked Pippin as he and Merry followed Frodo back into the study. "This Man who was visiting Lotho? You think he killed him?"

"Yes, but I don't think it's a Man at all," Frodo answered, and took Sting and Sam's sword down from the wall. As he turned to leave the room, he noticed that Sam was still standing in the hallway, staring after him in bewilderment. "Sam, dear, please do as I ask. If I'm right, this is far more important than being careful of my health. I am going, even if I spend another week in bed for it, and I need you to come with me. I need your help."

Sam didn't argue. He had no idea what Frodo was talking about, but heard the resolve in his voice and knew that whatever authority he normally had over Frodo had been overridden. All he could do now was follow Frodo's lead, and give him his best support.
Chapter 24 by Kathryn Ramage
They left Hobbiton at dusk and rode swiftly into the night. Frodo went ahead of the others, speaking and stopping very little along the way. He would not explain their errand fully, only that he might be wrong--he hoped he was wrong--but they must get to Sackville as quickly as possible nevertheless. Sam thought he was very frightened.

A nearly full moon rose to light their road, and it hung high in the sky overhead by the time they approached Sackville. At the outskirts of the village, Sam pointed out the hedge-lined path that led up to the house; the four hobbits dismounted and walked their ponies up. Frodo insisted they not be seen by the villagers. The old house at the top of the hill was dark and silent, but they had expected nothing else, even though they all were aware that someone might be inside.

They first tried the front door. "It's locked," said Merry.

Frodo gave the door a shove. "Barred." He looked around. "All the windows are shuttered and look as if they've been made fast too. Is there another way in?" he asked Sam.

"I don't know. I didn't look around much when I was here before. We could try at the back."

They circled the hilltop, trying each shuttered window as they went past and finding each as firmly bolted as the door. At last, they reached the scullery, a low, moss-covered brick outbuilding in a hollow in the hillside, attached to the smial by a tunnel. There, they found an unshuttered window with a cracked pane and, working with the points of their knives, managed to pry the broken pieces of glass free. Merry slipped one hand cautiously inside to locate and lift the latch; the two halves of the window casement swung open--and the hobbits reeled at the stench of rotting garbage that struck them. They had noticed the faint smell of a rubbish-heap since they'd first come to the old house, and this was obviously its source.

"What've they been doing," Sam wondered as he cupped a hand over his nose, "keeping pigs in here?"

"I suppose they thought it'd draw more attention if they tossed the rubbish out, or burned it," said Merry. "But I don't relish the idea of climbing in over it!"

"But that's just how we're going in," Frodo told them. "There isn't any other way. Now, hush and let's go." He prepared to climb up onto the window's round frame, when Sam put a hand on his arm and shook his head.

"I'll go in first," he insisted in a whisper, "and see it's safe."

Sam climbed in through the window, and as he stretched his toes down to find a place to stand, realized that he was over a wash-tub filled with dirty dishes. The kitchen was as filthy as he'd imagined, with scraps of discarded food left everywhere and soft scurrying sounds in the darkness that he was sure must be rats. Holding his breath, and hoping to avoid knocking over anything or putting his feet into a pile of muck, Sam carefully lowered himself until he stood solidly on the stone floor. Once he had made sure that there was no immediate danger, he reached up to help Frodo climb in, and they both assisted the other two. The scullery door hung ajar, and they ventured down the windowless brick-lined tunnel toward the main part of the house; each hobbit kept one hand on the grimy wall to guide himself, and all had their swords or knives at the ready.

As they approached the end of the tunnel, a voice spoke from the darkness ahead of them: "Welcome, little halflings. We've been expecting that someone might call."

A candle was lit, illuminating the ghastly pale face of the Man who stood before them. Merry and Pippin recognized him, though they had only seen him once before: Grima, called Wormtongue by the Riders of Rohan whom he had betrayed.

"Now you've come so far, you might as well come all the way in," he said in a sullenly ironic tone, and waved to indicate the darkened hallway to his right. "Meet your host. He wants to see you."

"Who?" wondered Sam, but their guide was already heading down the corridor, candle held high in one hand while he beckoned for them to follow with the other. The hobbits exchanged glances, then followed cautiously, Frodo leading them.

As they walked, Wormtongue went on talking. "I had hoped we might be gone from here before anyone came to find us, but he won't be moved. He says there's nowhere better to go. He's weakened still. He was wounded, you know." He glanced at the younger pair of hobbits. "You were there, weren't you? You saw it."

Pippin looked baffled, but Merry's eyes brightened and he nodded.

"But he didn't die," said Frodo.

"No, you can't kill him as easily as that..." Wormtongue turned suddenly, crouching to meet Frodo almost eye to eye as he hissed in a whisper, "Do you think I haven't tried? He doesn't die. What else could I do but bring him away? We came slowly up to the southern borders of your land. He told me it was a safe retreat. He had already made a connection here."

"Connection?" said Pippin, still not understanding.

"Pimple," explained Merry, who was beginning to put it all together himself. "They must've been doing business for some time. Remember the pipeweed Lotho sold outside the Shire? We found the barrels of Old Toby in the stores at Isengard ourselves."

Pippin nodded. "And smoked most of it too. But that means-"

"We stayed at the weed farm for quite awhile," said Wormtongue, "with the kind permission of your Lotho. He visited us often, but there were too many people there who might ask questions, and we couldn't stay. So we came up to Lotho's home. We couldn't stay long there either, with the neighbors peeking in at the windows and his mother expected back any day, but Lotho said that he had this house, safely away from everything, where we needn't worry about being disturbed. He'd stayed here in secret more than once himself. But it wasn't all generosity on Lotho's part, no--He made offers to your Lotho that dazzled his little head, promised him... oh, what was promised to me once. The realm I wanted, to rule as I pleased. The woman I desired. Whatever I could ask for, in return for my loyal service." He chuckled dismally. "Of course, I never got what I wanted, for all my pains. Instead, I've got this. Little Lotho wasn't so fortunate. He didn't see all that he'd bargained for 'til his lady-love died. And then it was too late for him."

They had stopped outside the door to a room, and Wormtongue shoved it open. There were no candles lit within, and only a low fire burned in the grate, providing just enough light to illuminate the large figure in dirty white robes seated on a bed too small for him.

"Gandalf?" cried Sam.

"No," Frodo said, although he had to agree that the resemblance was remarkable. He felt a sickening pang of deep emotion, as if he were seeing his dear, old friend in this miserable state. "It isn't Gandalf."

"It's Saruman," Merry barely breathed the name.

The wizard lifted his head and pushed his long white hair from his face to peer at them from beneath bushy eyebrows. "What brave little hobbits you are, to come here so well-armed and prepared for battle," he said in rich and elegant tones. "But you have nothing to fear from me. You have my vow that I have never laid a hand in harm upon any of your kind... nor will I."

His voice remained silken, but the small, malicious smile that curled at the corners of his mouth sent shivers through all four hobbits; none of them believed a word he said. Beneath the elegant tones lay a hiss of viciousness. Merry and Pippin drew closer together and, although they had lowered their knives, gripped the handles more firmly.

Saruman's eyes flickered over each hobbit in turn. "I presume one of you is the celebrated Frodo Baggins."

Frodo took a step forward. "I am," he answered, voice quavering. When Saruman's smile broadened, a fresh chill of horror ran through him. He reached for Sam's hand and squeezed it.

"I must admit that I've been curious to see you," the wizard told him. "I've heard a great deal about you."

"From Gandalf," said Frodo.

"Yes," Saruman replied, "but he is not the one I refer to. Your kinsman Lotho also spoke of you quite often. He was so looking forward to having his revenge on you. He had an impressively long list of people he wanted to revenge himself upon once he was in power, but you were at the very top."

"And you promised to help him."

"I had my own plans for vengeance as well. It amused me: You're so proud of yourself, aren't you? You arrogant, pampered, naive child. Dangling after Gandalf, taking his every utterance as sacred wisdom, imagining yourself among the great because you've unquestioningly performed whatever tasks he's set you. What have you gained for your services? Only the ruin of your health and your strength. You will not grow old, Frodo Baggins." Sam gasped aloud, and this seemed to amuse the wizard even more. "Foolish children, all of you. You've no idea what you've meddled in, and you need to be shown. The thought of seeing your little homeland suffer at the hands of one of your own kindred seemed quite sweet."

"If you were on such good terms, why did you kill him?" Frodo asked. He faced Saruman bravely, but Sam had felt the grip on his hand tighten at the wizard's horrible words. "Was it because of Daisy Puddlesby?"

"Why kill her?" Sam asked. "She couldn't have done you any harm."

"She knew they were here," said Merry. "She might've betrayed you, isn't that right?"

"She came here," admitted Wormtongue. "Lotho told her of his great plans. He said that when he was Lord of the Shire, she would be his Lady. He told her... much more than he should."

"She would have told others, and you couldn't allow that," said Frodo. "And Lotho protested, didn't he? So you killed him too."

"When he learned of the girl's death, Lotho made so much fuss that he had to be gotten rid of," Saruman answered.

"But you intended his death days before that, before Daisy's," Frodo responded. "You, or more likely your friend here, stole a grindstone from the mill. You were already planning his 'suicide' then."

"I thought it might be necessary, once it became obvious that none of his plans would succeed," Saruman confirmed. "He came here last week, demanding that I avenge all the wrongs done against him, when he was unable to deliver what he had promised me. It became very wearying to listen to and, after the girl's death, I knew that he could no longer be trusted.... Well, that was the end of Lotho." The wizard was still smiling. "There you have it, brave little hobbits. You've heard the truth. You have me at swordspoint. Now that you've captured your enemy, what do you intend to do? Will you kill me?"

"I don't wish to," answered Frodo. "For what you were, rather than what you've become. And I don't believe Gandalf would wish it. He would grieve to see how you've ended here."

"He would gloat to see my misery," the wizard retorted.

"You know that isn't so. He would say you've done worse to yourself than he, or we, can ever do. You've suffered more."

Saruman spat at him, "What can you know of my suffering, boy?"

"But I do know," Frodo answered solemnly. "I've been enthralled to the same evil. I carried Sauron's Ring, remember. I know how his influence can twist and corrupt what was once most decent and honorable. I was freed from that evil only by the act of another. Left to my own strength, I would have fallen, much worse than you have." He spoke with blunt honesty, and Sam's heart ached for him; he felt how that knowledge still tormented poor Frodo all these months later. "I can't pretend to be better than you. You have my pity, both of you."

Whatever answer Saruman had expected, it was not this. He regarded Frodo with the same resentment, but a new light of curiosity and watchfulness had come into his eyes.

"Because I do pity, and understand," Frodo concluded, "I will ask you to go."

The other three hobbits looked at him in astonishment. "You're letting them go?" sputtered Merry. "After all they've done?"

"We can't kill them in cold blood," Frodo responded, "and they can't be allowed to remain here." He turned to face Saruman again. "You have no reason to stay. Whatever plans you made for revenge are thwarted. You can have no further business here, with Lotho dead, and you've no hope of gaining another such foothold for your influence in the Shire as you had with him."

"Are you quite certain of that?" Saruman asked him, taunting.

Sam thought of Ted Sandyman; he would be happy to join in league with the likes of these two if he thought they'd help him bring about the mechanical Shire he dreamt of!

If Frodo wasn't also thinking of Ted in particular, he recognized that there might be other hobbits who, through malice or folly, would fall prey to Saruman's blandishments if they were to hear him. "Yes, that's so," he admitted. "Where one has been foolish enough to listen to you, others might too. Therefore, it is imperative that you leave at once, before you can do more harm to innocent hobbits." Summoning all his courage, he looked the wizard in the eyes and declared, "Go tonight, and never darken the Shire again."

"But they murdered Pimple and Daisy!" yelped Pippin.

"Yes, I know," said Frodo. "I came here to seek justice for them, but I don't see how it can be obtained." He told Saruman, "I don't like it, but you are beyond the reach of our justice. If we bring you before a magistrate and have you properly tried and convicted for your crimes, we have no prisons fit to hold you, and no prison we can make would be as bad as this filthy place you've caged yourself in. Even if we did detain you, you'd only try to make more mischief... and might succeed. What else can be done? If what your companion says is true, you can't be hanged."

"What about him?" the wizard lifted his eyebrows to indicate Wormtongue. "He can be hanged. Why should I be punished? After all, I've never done harm to any hobbit. Worm was the one who did the work."

Wormtongue spun on his master, mouth dropped open at this betrayal. "You told me to do it!"

"And you did it..." Saruman answered complacently, "and you will again, whenever I tell you."

In that instant, the same thought flashed into all four hobbits' minds. They realized why the wizard was answering their questions so pleasantly: he did not intend for them to leave this house alive.

They whirled, blades up and ready for a fight. Wormtongue was in the doorway behind them, blocking their way out, but they had each faced more terrible foes alone; surely they could contend with one Man and injured, powerless wizard together.

"Stand aside!" Merry ordered. "Or I'll run you through." He sounded almost cheerful at the thought of it.

"Now, Worm," Saruman said softly, giving a very different order of his own.

Wormtongue hesitated in an agony of indecision.

"Now!"

Merry didn't wait for Wormtongue to make up his mind, but darted forward with a cry. Pippin followed. As the hobbits came at him, Wormtongue drew out a long, nasty-looking dagger of his own to fend them off. There was not much room for fighting between the doorway and the bed, and for several minutes, all was noise and confusion as the Man flailed, the ragged ends of his black robes flying, the hobbits shouted, and metal clashed with metal. Sam tried to keep Frodo protected behind him.

At last, Merry's dagger cut through Wormtongue's robe to stab him. Clutching his abdomen, the Man fell to his knees on one side of the open door.

Sam turned to grab Frodo and pull him out of the room to safety, when he realized that Frodo was no longer at his elbow; he had stepped back away as Wormtongue fell and was dangerously close to the bed, and the wizard seated upon it.

As Frodo stepped backwards, Sam saw Saruman lean forward behind him, eyes glinting eagerly in the fire's light. He let out a horrified cry of warning--but his warning came too late, for in the same moment, the wizard reached out with a movement as quick as a striking snake, and seized Frodo by the throat. Caught by surprise, Frodo was yanked up abruptly, nearly into Saruman's lap; Sting slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor.

Sam was only a few feet away, but it might as well be miles for all he could help Frodo. Merry and Pippin had also turned at Sam's cry to see Frodo struggling helplessly.

"Let him go!" Merry shouted in the same tone he had used with Wormtongue. "It won't do you any good. You're not strong enough anymore to fight all of us. Let Frodo go, and we'll let you leave just as he said you could. Harm him and we'll see you pay for it."

"Maybe you won't die," Sam added fiercely, "but you can be cut nicely into a thousand pieces."

"I will leave this place in my own time," Saruman answered, undeterred by their threats. "But before I go, I will at least have my revenge. Whatever pain you inflict upon me will be nothing to the pain I can cause you." He held Frodo more tightly, clamping his fingers beneath the hobbit's jaw and putting an end to his struggles. "And sweeter still, I know how Gandalf would grieve at your ending here. But you mustn't be so frightened, little one," he told Frodo. "I promised I would not harm you. Worm!" he ordered. "I have one final task for you."

Wormtongue, who was huddled on the floor like a wounded animal, panting, looked up at his name. He considered the wizard with eyes that were dark in pain and fury, then crawled toward the bed, leaving a trail of blood behind him. He took up Sting, which had fallen near the wizard's feet. As he lunged upwards, Sam shouted "No!" and leapt to stab him a second time, but not before Wormtongue had thrust the sword into his target--not Frodo, but Saruman.

The Elvish blade had the power to do what lesser steel could not. It pierced beneath the wizard's arm, driving deeply into his heart. He cried out once, released Frodo, and tumbled forward.

Frodo tried to scramble out of the way before the larger body landed on him, but as Saruman fell, he seemed to dissolve--hair and skin, flesh and bone--and became so insubstantial by the time he reached the floor that he did not strike it, only dissipated against it. The only thing Frodo felt touch him was a heavy sheet of cloth like a blanket being thrown upon his back.

As he lifted his head and pushed the cloth, Saruman's empty robes, off himself, a sudden wind arose from nowhere; the force of it burst the shuttered window open. The hobbits watched in amazement as a vague, misty shape rose toward the ceiling like a gray column of smoke. For a moment, it turned as if it would face the West, but the breeze caught it and blew it away into the recesses of the abandoned house. There was a soft sound almost like a groan, and then it was silent.
Chapter 25 by Kathryn Ramage
Nothing was left of Saruman except for his robes. The hobbits, agreed that they couldn't leave the body of Wormtongue lying out, so they carried it out of the house for burial. It was grim and unpleasant work, and Sam made Frodo sit it out.

"Your part in this is finished. What's left isn't for you to do," he said firmly and, now that the emergency was over, Frodo submitted without protest. After his ordeal at Saruman's hands, he did feel very tired, more weary than he wanted Sam to know. While the others went to work behind the house, he hid the ponies in the ramshackle stable and sat on the grassy slope out front to keep watch through the rest of the night.

As the sun rose, he could see the land for miles to the south, and thought how beautiful it was: the green trees bright with the first leaves of spring; the rolling hills cut with dark lines of hedgerows and swaths of freshly tilled brown earth; the homey little cluster of cottages at the crossroads below with gray wisps of smoke rising from their chimneys. Even the white mists that hung low over the marsh glimmered dazzlingly when the dawn's light touched them.

Not long after daybreak, Sam came to join him. "You're all right, Frodo?"

"My neck feels a bit bruised," Frodo answered, gingerly touching the tenderest spots, "but I think I'll be fine."

"You're not going to have a bad turn over this, are you?"

"No, I'm not upset. Rather, the opposite." He looked up at Sam, who stood over him, still looking concerned; the wizard's taunt about his never growing old remained on both their minds. "I know that Gandalf would have wanted us to give them a chance to redeem themselves and be healed, no matter what they did. Nevertheless, now that they are gone, I can't help but feel... relieved. Almost light-hearted. The last taint of Sauron's evil has finally been banished from Middle-earth. We are safe." As Sam sat down on the grass beside him, Frodo leaned against his shoulder. "I feel very hopeful for the future."

Merry and Pippin came out from behind the house. Like Sam, both had mud on their trousers, grimy smudges on their hands and faces, and cobwebs in their hair.

"Where did you put- ah- him?" Frodo wondered.

"In the old family crypt out back," said Merry. "We agreed that he deserved a decent resting place, considering what he did at the very end. He must've hated Saruman more than he hated us. Besides, it might be noticed if we buried him in the garden and left a mound of turned-up earth. He won't be found in there."

"No one'll know they were here at all," Sam added.

"No one will ever know!" Pippin echoed in amazement.

"It felt good to be fighting again, didn't it?" said Merry, and put his fingertips to a dark red smear high on his cheek, where the tip of Wormtongue's dagger had nicked him and the blood had long ago dried. "For a little while, we were heroes once more. We put a stop to Saruman's plans for the Shire."

"Yes, but we can't tell anyone about it!" Pippin protested. "They'd never believe us even if we did."

"It's best that way," said Frodo. He was sitting with his folded arms on his knees, still gazing at the green hills in the morning light. "I'm sorry for Lotho. It isn't right that he should be called a suicide and held responsible for Daisy's murder, when he did love her, but to explain who really killed her--and him--would require further explanations. We'd have to tell not only who his murderers were, but how he brought them here, and why. All the Shire would know what he truly planned for them. They would know how close they came..." He shuddered. "No, I don't want them to know what happened here. The Shire must never be touched."

While he was still afraid that he did not have much time left in Middle-earth, right at this moment, he was determined to stay in this beautiful place, his home, and to hold on to the people he loved best for as long as he could.

"I don't want it to change." Tears welled in his eyes and, on an impulse born of resurgent hope, he threw both arms around Sam's neck and kissed him. "And I don't ever want to leave it!"
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