Since the death of Lobelia Sackville-Baggins that spring, Frodo had been assisting her niece and heir, Thimula Bracegirdle, in sorting through the deeds for the property that Lobelia had left. This was a long process; Lobelia had left much more than either Frodo or Thimula had anticipated and the old lady's papers weren't in the best of order. Whenever they thought they'd gone through it all, another strongbox full of more papers turned up to be sorted through. One October day when Frodo called, Thimula expressed an interest in one particular piece of property she'd recently discovered.

"It's called the old Sackville Place. Aunt Lobelia's husband's mother left it to him. You've been there once, haven't you, Frodo?" asked Thimula.

"Yes, several years ago, when Lotho went missing," answered Frodo. "My friends and I went looking for him there."

"Did you go inside?"

"As a matter of fact, we did," Frodo admitted. "We made our way in through a broken window in the scullery like a pack of burglars. The kitchen was filthy. It'd been used as a rubbish dump. I'm sure there were rats. Someone had been living in the place." He wouldn't tell her who, however, nor what his friends had placed in the Sackville family vault afterwards. He, Sam, Merry, and Pippin had all agreed that the truth behind Lotho's agreement with Saruman to despoil the Shire was best kept a secret between the four of them. Gandalf was the only person he'd ever told. While he and Thimula had grown to be good friends during the months since Lobelia's death, and he had even let her read some of the Red Book, he wasn't ready to tell her that story yet. Mordor and Isengard were so far away and alien to a hobbit's understanding that Thimula might see the things that had happened there as something from a dark fairy-tale; to place such a threat within the Shire was too horrific.

"But that's just the sort of thing I want to know!" Thimula said. "I don't know what to do about this old house her husband left her. I've asked about it since we first found the deed. Miss Dora Baggins told me that it was a grand residence long ago, but no one's lived in it for years. She said Lobelia never liked it, and had it shut up. I wondered if it would be worthwhile to have it refurbished and made livable so that it can be rented out. I might even want to live in it myself. Or, if it's so far past repair, it might be better left alone." She hesitated, then added, "I've also been informed that it's haunted."

When Frodo didn't respond to this statement beyond looking extremely interested, she added, "It's kind of you not to laugh at such nonsense, Frodo. I would've said you were just the sort of sensible and intelligent hobbit not given to idle fancy and superstition. Not the sort to believe in ghosts."

"I believe in ghosts. I've seen one or two myself."

It was now Thimula's turn to look extremely interested. "Have you really?"

"Oh, yes. I had an especially odd encounter with the ghost of an Elf who was slain over a thousand years ago. I've written an account of it. You can read it one of these days." He wasn't surprised to learn that the Old Sackville Place had a reputation for being haunted, and he could guess by whom. Someone worse than a poor, murdered Elf had died there. "Who told you the house is haunted?" Frodo had never heard such a story in Hobbiton; if it had been Aunt Dora, he was certain it would have reached his ears by now.

"It was a Mr. Bogwater, who's looked after the house for Auntie all these years. I found his address among Auntie's papers last week. I wrote and told him that I was the new owner and was planning to come and see the place. He wrote me back... Well, it's a very curious letter." Thimula fished a folded square of paper out of her skirt pocket and gave it to Frodo. "See for yourself."

Frodo unfolded the letter and read the following ill-spelt message:

"Miss-

"As Old Place is yurs now, ye be mos wellcom to com an i wil shew
ye abut, but wit rispek i say as ye doan owt to com an liv in
it. Som fowlk herabuts say as there be a gost as walks Old Place.
There do be od noyses an lites aseen at nites. Tisnt a fit howse
for no desent hobit fowlk, an tis rite ye no of it afor ye com.

'Rispekfly, S Bogwater
as was manger to Mrs. L. Sackville-Baggins


"I didn't know what to make of it--whether or not to believe it," Thimula went on once Frodo had read the letter and returned it to her. "But I'm determined to go have a look at the house regardless. The idea of visiting a house with a ghost is too remarkable to resist. I thought you might agree to go with me and see if there's anything in it. It isn't your usual sort of investigation, Frodo, but I can't think of anyone else who could be of help. If there is something unearthly going on at the Old Sackville Place, you'll be sure to find it out and it will help me decide what to do about it. But perhaps we'll discover that there's nothing to fear."

---

"You can't go there, Frodo!" Sam protested when he heard Frodo's plans later that afternoon. "Miss Bracegirdle don't know what's in that house, but you do. Better not to go poking in. Leave well enough alone and let the roots take over and the roof fall in. Let it go back to Nature, that's what you ought to tell her."

"Thimula intends to go whether I do or not, Sam, and I'd rather she not go by herself. If the house is haunted, she oughtn't go inside it unprotected. As you say, I know what's to be found in there."

"Well then," Sam huffed, "if you're bound to go to protect her, then I'm going to protect you."

Frodo smiled. "Will Rosie let you?"

"I'll tell her it's another investigation, and you need looking after. She'll understand."

"Very well then. We'll look into this haunted house together, and do what we can about it. Not much, I expect. If there were time, I'd try to send a message to Gandalf and see if there is some way to lay the spirit of a dead wizard to rest."

They rode up to Sackville a few days later. Sackville was a tiny village, consisting of a cluster of smials and cottages at the crossroads below the abandoned smial on the hill, and some farmlands around them. There was only one small inn, with one available room. Thimula spoke of seeking lodgings in another, larger town not far away, but once the innkeeper understood that she was the new owner of the Old Sackville Place, whose visit was expected, news of her arrival quickly spread throughout the village. Before she could make alternative plans, she was invited to stay at the smial of the most prominent local hobbits, a wealthy farm family named Hodberry. Sam and Frodo were given the room at the inn.

Sam and Frodo were also asked to tea that afternoon at the Hodberry farm. The Hodberries were eager to meet Frodo as well as Thimula; both were connected to the extinct Sackvilles that had once been so notable in the area, even though neither was a true Sackville.

"That line's died out now, I'm sorry to say," said Mrs. Hodberry. "Mr. Lotho was the last. He used to come up this way now and again."

"Missus Lobelia, his mum, was only here once, when she was new married to Mr. Otho, back when I was a wee lad," Mr. Hodberry added. "She never come again since, but she used to write these long letters to Sully Bogwater, who looked after the Old Place for her, though Sully could hardly read nor write a word. We had to read them for him--and your letter to him as well, Miss. She never took an interest in the Old Place, save to see that nobody trespassed on it."

"We had some hopes Mr. Lotho'd be opening up the old home someday, before that awful scandal," Mrs. Hodberry went on.

"That's what I hope to do," said Thimula, but her hosts quickly discouraged this plan.

"I couldn't recommend it, Miss," said Mr. Hodberry. "Much as I'd like to see gentlefolk living amongst us again, there's been one odd happening atop another since Mr. Lotho died."

"Odd noises and strange lights at night?" asked Frodo, recalling Mr. Bogwaters' warning to Thimula.

"That's right," the farmer replied solemnly. "I seen it myself, Mr. Baggins. You can just spy the windows of the Old Place through the trees from our south pasture, and more'n once when I've been out that way after dark, I've seen lights a-flickering up on the hill."

"And you never went closer to investigate?"

"Oh, no. There's been such odd goings-on there, sensible folk daren't go near it."

"Then you believe the place is truly haunted?" Thimula asked the couple. "We'd heard such tales, but I didn't know whether or not to believe it."

The Hodberries both nodded vehemently. "There's a ghost up there all right, Miss! Whether it's Mr. Lotho that haunts, or that poor girl, or somebody else, I couldn't tell you, but 'tisn't a fit place for living hobbits anymore," Mr. Hodberry declared.

"Have a look if you like, Miss, since that's what you and your friends here've come for," his wife added, "but mind you don't linger up there once it starts to get dark."

Since there was still an hour or more of daylight remaining when they finished their tea, the trio went up the hill to the Old Sackville Place that same afternoon. Sam was reluctant to go, but Thimula was eager to have a look at her haunted house, and Frodo wouldn't dream of letting her go by herself; this was, after all, why he'd agreed to accompany her. And he had to admit that he was curious about the place too.

Thimula had brought a key with her, so there was no question of breaking in like burglars this time. They were there legitimately, and entered boldly through the front door. The hinges were rusty and creaked as the door swung open, and an odd, strong, and unpleasant smell of something rotted struck them as they stepped into the entrance hall. Frodo was grateful that he and Sam didn't have to conduct Thimula past the rubbish heap in the kitchens, where the smell must be unbearable if it carried so far. He was also a little surprised; he would have thought that the worst of the rubbish had rotted away or been eaten by rats and beetles after all these years.

"It's not so bad," Thimula said, determined to be optimistic as she looked into the rooms to the immediate right and left of the front hall. These rooms were covered with the grime of heavy dust settling over many years, blackening the sheets that had been placed over the furniture, and tree roots poked in here and there through the cracked plaster on the ceiling and walls. "But what is that awful smell?"

They traced the stink not to the kitchens, but to the dining room. There were mugs left on the table, as well as a dusty jug of beer and the withered and rotted remains of an apple and some moldy bread and cheese set on a large white handkerchief atop the table's grimy dust-cover. These objects had been obviously sitting there for some time, but not for the long years since Saruman's and Wormtongue's residence. Not more than a month or so, Frodo estimated. That odd smell was now very strong and seemed be emanating from a piece of folded canvas on the floor near the fireplace.

Cautiously, Frodo approached the canvas and bent down to throw back the top flap. He gasped at the uncovered source of the stench, and Thimula gave a soft cry as she covered her nose.

"Fish!" she said in disgust.

"Trout, by the look of 'em," Sam guessed as he looked down at the severed heads and tails of several fish that had been left within the canvas sheet.

"They must've been here for weeks," Frodo observed, "like the food and drink on the table. It all must've been left by the same people."

"Well, at least this mess will be easy to clean up," said Thimula. "Let's take that muck out-of-doors right now. Tomorrow, we can build a bonfire in the garden to toss the rubbish into. And open the windows, please! If this is the worst, then it isn't so bad as I feared. Shall we have a look at the rest of it?"

After the canvas containing the fish had been taken outside, they went from room to room, opening more windows to bring fresh air into the house and provide some light. In one of the back parlors on the side of the house overlooking Rushock Bog and not visible from the village, there were signs that a window had been forced open, then shut again but not barred. In the bedroom where he and his friends had confronted Saruman, the bed was unmade and the charred logs of a fire still sat in the grate, but otherwise it was just as Frodo had last seen it. There were the traces of a dark stain on the floorboards. Only the wizard's white robes had been removed.

"This house needs a good sweeping and scrubbing, and pots of fresh paint and plaster, but I think it can be made livable," Thimula decided after she'd seen all the rooms in the main part of the house.

"Then you don't believe in the haunting anymore?" Frodo asked her.

"No," she replied, "and neither do you. Someone has certainly been in here--living hobbits, not ghosts. I don't need the Shire's finest detective to tell me that ghosts have no use for bread nor beer, nor dressed trout. There's a mystery there--who they are, and why they chose to do such a thing here at the Old Place. You can look into that if you like, Frodo. But ghosts? No." She shook her head. "I can see that this was once a handsome smial, and it could be again. If there aren't any ghosts about, there's no reason why I can't make it so. It would be a pleasant place to bring up a large family."

"Rubar Chinhold has three children," Frodo said, playfully referring to a Bywater widower who had once paid tentative court to Thimula before he'd fallen afoul of Lobelia. Although Thimula had only spoken vaguely of restoring the Old Sackville Place to rent it out or perhaps live in, he now guessed at her true intentions. Lobelia's home in Hobbiton was a comfortable smial, suitable for a lady living alone, but it might be rather cramped with a number of young children in it.

Thimula smiled, seeing that he understood. "And he might yet have more," she answered coyly.

A change had come over Thimula these past months, one that Frodo was very pleased to see. When he'd first met her last autumn, she'd been a dour and dowdy young woman who looked older than her forty-some years. Frodo had only occasionally glimpsed hints of a wry sense of humor when he spoke to her. While Thimula was always patient and tolerant while taking care of her fractious old aunt, he and the rest of the Baggins family had pitied her and thought she deserved better. Since Lobelia's death, Thimula was no longer a poor and dependent relation, but mistress of a sizeable fortune and her own future, and it showed. There was a new light in her eyes, confidence in her bearing, and a sprightly tone to her voice; that wry sense of humor emerged more often. And though she would never be pretty, she was no longer dowdy. She was still somberly dressed in the colors of light mourning, but his cousin Angelica had introduced her to the best dressmaker in Michel Delving. Frodo thought that Mr. Chinhold would be a lucky hobbit indeed if Thimula consented to marry him, and not because of her wealth.

Thimula's marriage would also put an end to the gossip around Hobbiton that he would marry her. The rumors had begun when Lobelia had left Bag End to him--even though Bag End was never hers to give--on the condition that he become Thimula's husband.

As the sun fell low in the western sky, Sam grew anxious to get Frodo and Thimula away before nightfall, but the two were determined to go on exploring. They went into the scullery last of all, for the kitchens lay down a long and dark, brick-lined tunnel apart from the rest of the house. Here was the worst; for the first time, Thimula was daunted by the years-old piles of rubbish.

"I might let this part of the house fall into rubble," she declared. "I can hire some local hobbits to come fill it in and dig out a new kitchen for me. What a haven for rats!"

At the thought of rats, all three hobbits curled up their toes defensively, and decided that they'd seen enough.

As they retreated back down the brick-lined tunnel that connected the kitchens to the main part of the house, they heard the creak of rusty hinges on a door or window swinging in the breeze. "We ought to shut up the windows we left open, in case it rains in the night," said Thimula.

By the time they'd finished shutting the windows, the sun had set behind the westward hills and the light was fading fast. Sam looked even more nervous than before, and he kept behind Frodo and Thimula to act as a sort of rear guard and to shepherd them safely out the front door.

Perhaps it was an echo of their bare feet pattering on the wooden floor of the wide entry hall, but as he went out, Frodo thought he heard soft, slow footsteps somewhere behind them. Thimula, who had already gone outside into the overgrown garden, did not hear it, but Sam did.

"Let's get out of here," Sam said, and shut the door behind them. Thimula had left the key behind when they'd gone in, and he quickly turned it to lock the door.

They walked back down the hill toward the village in the deepening twilight. Thimula expressed her relief and delight that the house was not truly haunted, and Sam turned back now and again to look at the path behind them. Frodo was quiet and thoughtful.

"I'd like to have a better look around the foot of the hill tomorrow in full daylight," he said. "I suspect there's a stream nearby, on your new property."

"A trout stream?" Thimula said with a laugh. "Then you mean to look into this other mystery, Frodo?"

"Yes. I've already a good idea of why, but I'm curious about who. Aren't you?"

Thimula admitted to being extremely curious as to who had been trespassing into her house to clean fish and leave behind an unpleasant mess.

"Would you like to help, then?" Frodo asked.

"Yes, certainly! Your cousins, Mrs. Burrows and Mrs. Whitfoot, tell me that they often assist you in your investigations. I've always thought it sounded like an exciting thing to do. Nothing exciting has ever happened to me before this. How can I help?"

"I want you to ask Mr. and Mrs. Hodberry about the local markets."

"Markets?"

Frodo nodded. "Ask them where are the best places to buy fish."

"Oh, I see..."

"Then, depending on their answers, you may have to ride about a bit tomorrow to visit the nearest marketplaces." Frodo gave her further instructions on what to ask and what to look for. "While you're doing that, Sam and I will go up and have another look at the Old Place and the land around it." He glanced at Sam, who'd been silent during their walk. Even though they were now in the lane a few hundred yards from the first lights of Sackville, Sam was still keeping a wary eye on the hilltop above and behind them; the Old Place itself was blocked from view by the trees and tall hedge surrounding it. "I'm sure these trout-poachers are behind all the lights and odd noises," said Frodo. "All the same, it's rather odd..."

Thimula might've asked him what was odd, but they had now reached the village. An elderly hobbit was standing beneath the lamps outside the inn door; as he spotted the three strangers approaching, he came forward to meet them, cap in hand. "Miss Bracegirdle, is it?" he addressed Thimula.

"That's right. And you're Mr. Sully Bogwater?"

"At yer service, Miss," he replied with a low bow. "I didn't 'spect ye to come so soon, Miss, not without writing again. I come by when I heard tell ye was here, but they said as ye'd gone to Hodberry Farm. When I went over to there, Farmer 'n' Missus said ye'd gone up to Old Place with the gents here," He bowed again to Frodo and an astonished Sam. "Ye never went in there, Miss?" Sully Bogwater sounded horrified at the possibility.

"I'm afraid we did," said Thimula. "It was still daylight, and we saw nothing alarming, except for a terrible mess--did we?"

"No," Frodo said. He hadn't actually seen anything frightening, and there was a rational explanation for what he'd heard just as they were leaving. "Do you ever go into the house, Mr. Bogwater?" he asked Sully.

"No, sir," the old hobbit answered. "I don't have no key. I only goes about the grounds onc't in awhile to see as everything's shut up proper. `Twas a time when I'd ask Missus Sackville-Baggins about keeping the place up, but she always wrote back that that was none o' my business. I wasn't to spend a jot on fixing things up 'less I was of a mind to pay for it meself. Keep trespassers off her property, that all I was to do. Begging yer pardon, Miss," he added with another bow to Thimula. "Missus Sackville-Baggins was yer kin, but she never cared if the poor Old Place was to fall in, and now it's had its revenge of her."

"Revenge?" Frodo echoed this odd choice of word.

"That's right, sir. They say as it's her own son, Mr. Lotho, that walks the place by night."

After they'd seen Thimula to the Hodberry farm, Sam and Frodo returned to the inn for their own dinner, then retired to their room. They'd refrained from discussing the case while in Thimula's company, or when other patrons of the inn were present, but once they were alone, Frodo began to lay out his plans for exploring the Sackville property more closely the next day.

"You aren't going back inside that house again, are you?" asked Sam.

"Perhaps not tomorrow," Frodo assured him. "I'm more interested in the land around it." Having changed into his nightshirt, he snuggled down into the narrow bed in the inn's single room for travelers. A fire had been lit for them and a down comforter provided, but the room was chilly. When Sam climbed in beside him, Frodo moved over a little, but he welcomed the warmth of the arm thrown over him and the solid body against his back. The size of the bed meant that they had to lie close against each other; if Sam was pressing more closely than was absolutely necessary, Frodo didn't mind. "I'm certain there must be a stream on the other side of the hill, just below the house. It's the only reason I can think of why someone would use the empty house to clean their trout in secret. They were stealing it from Aunt Lobelia. Not that she'd care about the trout for herself, but she'd hate to have anyone make use of something that belonged to her."

"D'you think that Sully Bogwater knows what was going on up there?"

"The trout-poachers? Yes, I imagine so. I think that's why he's so eager to keep Thimula out of the place. I find it difficult to believe that two sets of intruders have broken into the Old Place in recent years, and he didn't notice either. That was very lax of Mr. Bogwater, but given Lobelia's attitude toward the house, I can't blame him for not being more diligent about protecting her property."

"Then you're sure it's living hobbits behind this all?" Sam asked him.

"I think we've found the source of the haunting at the Old Place, and it's no ghost." Frodo lay silent for awhile before he repeated what he'd begun to say on their walk back from the Old Place, "All the same, it's rather odd."

"Hm?"

"Well, whoever they were, they left in a hurry the last time they were there," Frodo explained. "According to the stories we've heard, the lights and odd sounds at the Old Place have been going on for months. If our trespassing trout-poachers have been behind it all this time, they've troubled to clean up after themselves before. Why not this last time? And, by the look of it, that last time was several weeks ago. They haven't been inside the house since."

"So there might be a ghost after all?" Sam pursued. "And you think it frightened them away?"

"I don't know," Frodo admitted. "There could be any number of other reasons why they fled that night and haven't returned that have nothing to do with ghosts. Old Mr. Bogwater may have come to investigate the lights at night after all. Or perhaps the poachers quarreled amongst themselves and gave the business up."

Sam had no immediate response to these speculations, but Frodo could feel blasts of warm breath blowing on his hair to tickle the nape of his neck. After a minute or two, Sam said, "There was footsteps behind us, just as we were leaving. You heard them too."

"That was probably nothing more than an echo of our own feet, Sam," he said, as much to convince himself as Sam.

"It didn't sound like no hobbit-feet to me. These was heavier, like one o' the Bigs. Or else it was Him... you know who I mean. You believe in ghosts, Frodo. I know you do."

"I do," Frodo conceded, "but I'm not so eager to believe in them that I can ignore a more rational explanation when it sits before me. We were both expecting to find a ghost when we went into that empty old house. It was spooky once it began to grow dark, and our imaginations made the most of it."

Sam remained unconvinced by Frodo's rational explanations, but he didn't continue to argue. He lay quietly for some time, breathing against Frodo's shoulders. Then, after awhile, he stole one arm around Frodo's waist and pulled him back, close against his own body as possible. Frodo, who'd expected his friend to sulk himself to sleep, was pleasantly surprised, and more so when Sam's breath blew hot into his ear before he began nibbling the pointed tip.

Frodo chuckled and writhed at this intensely erotic sensation. "I'm glad you're not in a sour mood after all."

"Why would I be?" Sam asked back between nips. "Only, we're not going into that house again so close to dark, ghost or no ghost."

"No, Sam."

"And we're not going to go on talking about it when we got a room to ourselves and better things to do."

Frodo agreed to this as well, thinking of some of the 'better things' they might do before they went to sleep. "Confess now, Sam. This is why you always come out with me on these investigations, isn't it?"

Sam stopped nibbling. "What d'you mean?"

"It isn't to help me investigate, nor for the adventure of it," Frodo teased. "It's not even to protect me from danger, but so that we can spend the night in an inn somewhere, together in peace?" He turned over to wind his arms around Sam's neck. "Goodness knows we have little chance of a quiet night at home."

"It's not the only reason--you do want looking after," Sam replied. "But being alone with you's gotten to be more welcome these days." He began to nuzzle the hollow of Frodo's throat. "We don't hardly have the time for it anymore, with me 'n' Rosie getting up at all hours o' the night to look after one baby or the other, or else it's little Frodo making a fuss, or Nel wants a drink of water. At least, we can go running off detecting when we want to. It's Rosie I feel sorry for. She never gets a day away from the little uns."

"She ought to have a holiday," Frodo decided. "Both of you. You haven't had an opportunity to be by yourselves since your honeymoon. When the twins are a bit older and Rosie feels she can leave them, why don't the two of you take a few days and go anywhere you like for a rest. Michel Delving? That old cottage of Mrs. Broombindle's where you spent your honeymoon? Any inn anywhere in the Shire that takes your fancy. My treat."

"And you'd look after the little uns while we're away?" Sam lifted his head to regard Frodo skeptically.

"I shall hire a nursery-maid. I've been wanting to since the twins were born, to take some of the burden off of you and Rosie--not to mention Mrs. Cotton and Marigold, who has her own baby to look after and shouldn't have to spend half her days at Bag End helping out. We need one badly. I've said so to Rose, only she won't hear of it."

"Of course she wouldn't."

"I don't see why not," replied Frodo. "We always had plenty of nursery-maids to look after us at Brandy Hall, three or four at once."

"That's different. Folk like you and the Brandybucks always have servants to do your washing-up and sweeping and such. Looking after the children's just one more job to hire somebody for," Sam explained. "Farm folk like the Cottons're used to looking after their own."

"But you and Rose are gentry now, Sam." Frodo smiled. "Didn't Mr. Bogwater call you a 'gent' just this evening? There you are! A proper gent has servants, and therefore has a bit more time free to indulge himself in diversions... like this." He pulled Sam down for a kiss.

Later on in the night, those soft, slow footsteps echoed through Frodo's sleep. They weren't the sounds of bare hobbit feet. Whatever walked in the Old Sackville Place was wearing boots.

The next morning, Frodo and Sam walked around the grounds of the Sackville Place until they found a stream at the eastern foot of the hill. This they followed around to the northern slopes, where some large boulders had fallen down to divert the stream into a deep pool. Standing upon these large rocks, they could look down to see large, brown-skinned trout swimming in the depths, and occasionally rising to the water's surface to snap at unwary insects. With shady, overhanging willow trees and flat stone surfaces warmed by the sun to sit down on, it was an ideal spot for fishing.

"If Miss Thimula does come to live here, we ought to ask if we can bring a rod or two and spend an afternoon," Sam declared as he crouched to dabble his fingertips in the water and coax one of the fish up. "We'd bring in enough for a good dinner without having to wade in after `em."

Frodo made sounds of agreement, but he was studying the muddied slopes above the pool leading up to the house; these showed traces of something heavy being dragged up not too long ago, although any distinct footprints had been obliterated. Jumping lightly from rock to rock to cross to the far side of the stream, he could see the top of the hill. Since the slope was so steep, no hedge had been planted on this side of the house, yet it could be scaled by someone who wished not to be seen entering the grounds. The window that had been forced open was immediately above this steep slope--the first one someone climbing up would reach. Frodo decided that he'd seen all he had to see.

As he and Sam passed around to the westward side of the hill, they noticed smoke rising from its top. When they reached the path, they went swiftly up to find that Thimula had built her bonfire in the garden, and was burning rubbish.

"You haven't been in the house, Miss?" asked Sam, although it was obvious. The front door to the house was wide open, and Thimula had carried out some of the filthy dust sheets and small pieces of furniture that she'd deemed beyond repair. Sam cast a wary eye toward the open door, but he didn't like to frighten Thimula by mentioning the ghost; he only added, "You might've waited, and we'd've helped you carry the heavy trash out."

"That's kind of you, Mr. Gamgee, but I didn't want to wait. I've only dragged out a few small things to begin with." She flung the leg of a broken dining-room chair into the flames. "I'll hire some local laborers to help with the heavier things. Mr. Hodberry has promised me the services of his best hired hands once they've finished bringing in the harvest. And Mrs. Hodberry is making inquiries for me to obtain maids for sweeping and scrubbing, and a plasterer to fix the walls and ceilings. Besides, I didn't know how long you'd be. Did you find your trout stream?"

"Yes, and it's lovely," Frodo answered. "Plenty of trout for poachers, big, flat rocks to fish from as well as pile up their catch on. It looks like they wrapped the catch up in canvas bundles to drag them up the far slope of the hill and in through a window. No one would see them, even if they fished by day. But they must have done their cleaning up by night. I must say, Thimula, I didn't expect to find you back here so soon. You've finished your errands already?"

"There was no difficulty at all. I asked Mrs. Hodberry about the nearest market-towns and days," Thimula reported. "I said I wanted to know where my friends and I could go to obtain a nice fish dinner. She said she and her husband weren't very partial to fish themselves, but she was as helpful as she could be. I went out first thing this morning and rode as far as Needlehole to ask around the marketplace. It isn't a market day today, but there were several shops open, and people were happy to tell me who'd been selling trout recently. They gave me names, including one I took a special interest in. I asked where I could find him, but the shopkeepers thought he was no longer in business. He stopped coming into town quite suddenly a month or so ago, and hasn't been seen since. But I expect we'll find him easily enough." She looked Frodo in the eye. "The name was Selbry Bogwater."

"You want my Selbry?" Mr. Bogwater asked when the trio called at his cottage on the outskirts of the village. "He an't here, Miss, sirs. What d'you want the lad for?"

"We'd like to ask him a few questions, if you don't mind," said Frodo, guessing that Selbry was Sully's son or grandson. He, like Thimula, had immediately surmised that the trout poacher was a relative of the old caretaker when he'd first heard the name. They had come to find out, but Sully's "my Selbry" made the relationship clear even before any questions could be asked. "We're curious to know more about his trout-fishing with his friends in the stream that runs under the Old Sackville Place."

"What of it?" the old hobbit responded.

"You're meant to be looking after the property," said Sam.

"My property," Thimula interjected.

"Beg yer pardon, Miss," Mr. Bogwater said deferentially, "but it wasn't yers 'til recent. `Twas Missus Sackville-Baggins' property. Now she'd have no use for the trout, but she'd never let anybody else have the use of `em if I was to ask. Why shouldn't the lads catch a fish or two? No harm in it."

"It was more than a fish or two, Mr. Bagwater," said Frodo. "They've made a business of it."

"I made inquiries in Needlehole," Thimula added. "According to the shopkeepers, Selbry Bogwater used to come into town weekly on market days with his friends this past spring. They carted bundles of fresh trout by the dozens, wrapped in damp canvas. I wouldn't object to someone fishing the stream now and again, but that's really beyond a reasonable limit! Not to mention what's been going on in the house."

"The house, Miss?"

"They've been breaking into Miss Bracegirdle's house to clean the fish for market," Sam informed Mr. Bogwater. "Maybe that's something the shirriff up in Needlehole'd like to hear about."

Sully Bogwater looked blankly astounded.

"Surely you knew that was what was behind all those lights and noises up at the Sackville house at night," Frodo asked. "Isn't that why you spread stories about the house being haunted, to keep people from investigating? Is that why you made such efforts to keep Miss Bracegirdle from coming here and discouraged her from going into the house? You knew we'd find signs of hobbit trespassers instead of a ghost."

"I never spread stories, Mr. Baggins!" Mr. Bogwater objected indignantly. He did not deny the other accusations Frodo had made. "Folk hereabouts saw the lights and said there was a ghost. And there is a ghost! Selbry!" The old hobbit stepped away from the front door, which he had been standing at and holding half-open since his callers had arrived, and went around to the side of the cottage. "Selbry-lad! You come here!"

Evidently, 'an't here' had meant that Selbry was not actually inside the cottage, but was within ear-shot, for in response to this summons, a young hobbit appeared from the copse of trees in the neighboring field.

"Selbry-lad," said Mr. Bogwater once the boy was in the cottage door-yard, "you tell Miss Bracegirdle and the gents here what you saw up t' Old Place."

Selbry ducked his head and turned very red. "You said I wasn't to talk about that, Pop."

"Well, I changed my mind!" Mr. Bogwater retorted. "Mr. Baggins here says there isn't no ghost, and I made it all up to frighten folk. You tell 'm otherwise, lad."

"Besides," said Frodo, "we already know all about the trout stream you and your friends have been poaching from. We know you've been selling the fish in Needlehole, and using the dining room to clean them."

Selbry's head was still down; his face couldn't be seen under the mop of dark curls, but his ears remained red. "We couldn't use the kitchen," he answered in a mumble. "None o' us would set foot in that rubbish-dump."

"Who's this 'us'?" Sam asked him.

The boy was reluctant to name names, but surrounded by three stern strangers and his scowling father, he eventually came out with "Me, Turvy Rushdown at-the-inn, 'n' Jolo Mums as works for Mr. Hodberry," all in a rush. Then he lifted his head and fixed his eyes on Thimula as he explained, "We didn't mean no harm to the Old Place, Miss. That bit o' the stream's the best fishing for miles, but it belonged to the old lady. She'd never miss the trout, but she'd have the law on us if she knew. And we always cleaned up, like Pop said to, 'cept the last time."

Frodo noted that Mr. Bogwater had indeed known exactly what his son had been up to at the Old Sackville Place, but since it must have brought some money into their home, and revenged Lobelia for her neglect, had ignored or encouraged it as long as no damage was done. He didn't follow this line, however; there was a more interesting point to pursue. "You haven't been there in awhile?" he asked Selbry. "What happened that last time?"

"We an't been back, sir, not in a month or more," said Selbry. "Like Pop says, there's sommat odd in that house. We didn't like to be there at night, with the creaking doors when there wasn't no breeze, and the sound o' boots thumping down the hall."

"Boots..." murmured Frodo.

"Then we saw it!"

"Saw what?"

"The ghost!" The boy's eyes were wide. "We was in the dining room, just finishing up. We heard them footsteps, like before, only this time it came right past the door and stopped to peek in at us! It didn't look like no ghost. That is to say, we didn't know he was what he was. We thought he was really there, solid-like in the flesh, `til he vanished right afore our very eyes! Turvy'd already taken the last o' the fish out to the cart, and me 'n' Jolo went out as fast as we could after 'm! We didn't dare go back, not even in the light o' day. I'm sorry, Miss, if we left a mess o' fish," he apologized to Thimula.

Thimula accepted this graciously but, like Frodo and Sam, she was interested in hearing more about the ghost.

"What did it look like?" asked Frodo. "Was it like one of the Big Folk, in white robes?"

"No, sir," said Selbry. "He was a shriveled-up little thing, all hunched over so he wasn't much bigger'n a hobbit. Pop says it was Mr. Lotho's ghost, but he never saw it. It was a Big, but he wasn't wearing white. His face was white like a worm, and he had scraggly black hair."

"Now," said Thimula once they had left the Bogwaters, "will you please tell me: who is it that's haunting my house? You knew something was there, both of you, and you were afraid of it. I could see that before we even set foot inside, and poor Mr. Gamgee was plainly frightened when we left the Old Place last night. But the ghost you expected to find wasn't the one Selbry described. You asked about white robes, Frodo, and you were surprised to hear about the ghost being a shriveled-up creature with black hair. You told me you'd seen a ghost or two. Did you and your friends see the one wearing white robes when you were here before?"

"We saw him--both of them--but they were both still alive then," Frodo replied carefully.

"Then you know who the other one is too? You can't deny it--I saw the look that went between the two of you."

"Yes. At least, I think it's the same Man, from Selbry's description," Frodo explained. He hadn't wanted to tell her, but there was no help for it. If she was to understand who was haunting her house, she would have to know why Saruman and Wormtongue had come there, and how they had died. "When we broke into the Old Place, there was someone living there. Friends of Lotho's, I suppose you could call them, although in the end they proved to be neither friends of Lotho nor of anyone else, even each other. They are both dead now."

Thimula considered this information. "Are they the ones responsible for his death, and that poor girl's?"

"Yes," said Frodo. "This Man strangled them both, at his master's orders, then killed his master before he died himself."

Thimula looked from Frodo to Sam. "And who killed him?"

"It was Merry Brandybuck who stabbed 'm," Sam told her. "But we was all fighting against them. They had hold of Frodo and would've killed him and every one of us, Miss Bracegirdle, rather'n let us leave that house alive."

"You have had adventures! And you thought they must be behind this haunting, because they died there?"

"I thought it more likely than Lotho's ghost," Frodo admitted. "The other one was a wizard, you see."

"Like that friend of yours in your book--Gandalf?"

"Yes, very much like Gandalf. He was the one wearing white robes. This Man was his servant. His name was Grima, but they called him Wormtongue. He betrayed his own people in a kingdom far to the south, and when his new master lost all, he escaped with him. They came here to hide. They'd had business relations with Lotho, you see. He sold the wizard pipeweed grown on that plantation in the Southfarthing that now belongs to you. Lotho sheltered them and aided them, in hopes of gaining more wealth, prestige, power, in the Shire."

Thimula nodded solemnly. "Yes, that would be very like Lotho. But it ended badly for all three."

"Badly for them, but fortunately for the Shire. They could've done a great deal of damage if they hadn't been stopped," Frodo said. "Thimula, you must see why we've kept what truly happened to Lotho a secret all these years. Aunt Lobelia never knew, nor have Sam or I told anyone else. It's too terrible for hobbits to know how close to ruin the Shire was because of Lotho and his friends. I trust you'll keep our secret."

"Yes, of course," she agreed. "I don't know who I would tell, now that Auntie's gone--and she would never have believed it of her son. But, Frodo, what about my house? Can't this Man's ghost be laid to rest somehow? If he can't be, I shall have to give it up rather than try to live there with him stomping around at night and peering into the rooms."

Frodo heard the disappointment in her voice; Thimula had come to love the Sackville Place already. "We can only try," he said. People were always asking nearly impossible things of him and yet, somehow, he managed to accomplish what he'd been asked to do. He'd once helped to send an Elven ghost that had walked for over a thousand years to rest; might he do the same now, for Grima Wormtongue?

He and Sam discussed the problem in a corner of the common room at the inn after Thimula had returned to the Hodberry farm for some much-needed tea. It was still early in the afternoon and none of the local farm-hobbits was there to overhear their conversation, although the innkeeper had looked skittish when he'd heard the word 'ghost,' and thereafter retreated from the room.

"I will try for Thimula's sake, of course, but I don't see what we can do," Frodo concluded. "Grima Wormtongue's already been laid to rest once, in the Sackville family vault. You and Merry and Pip put him there."

"So we did," confirmed Sam. "We laid 'm out as nice as we could manage. He couldn't've asked for a better resting-place--probably better'n he deserved."

"Well, yes, and he can't expect us to send his remains back to Rohan at this late date. Even if it were possible, King Eomer certainly wouldn't want him buried there, after all the trouble he caused them." Frodo sighed. "There's only one way to find out what he's after."

"What's that?"

"Ask him."

"Ask?"

Frodo nodded. "I know, Sam, that we agreed not to set foot in that house again after dark, but I'm afraid there's no other way. We'll have to go back tonight."

The shadows were long in the garden and dusk was settling over the field below the hill when Sam and Frodo returned to the Old Sackville Place. Thimula had left the front door unlocked that afternoon and Frodo tentatively pushed it open. Inside, the house was dark even though some of the window shutters were also left open. Sam had brought candles and matches, and he lit them for Frodo and himself before they ventured into the entry hall. The first rooms they looked into were cleaner than they'd been when they'd seen them yesterday. In addition to burning rubbish and removing the grimy dust-covers, Thimula had swept up and knocked down the heavier cobwebs from the ceilings.

They ventured into the room where Wormtongue had died. It seemed the best place to begin. Frodo noted that the door hinges creaked as he pushed it open.

Thimula had also straightened up in here a little. The floor was swept and the old bedclothes removed, but the dark stain on the floorboards remained. Frodo recalled an old tale in Minas Tirith about a bloodstain on a tavern floor that could never be washed away, and he wondered what Thimula would do if she couldn't rid the house of this one.

"What if he doesn't show up tonight?" Sam wondered.

"Then we shall have to come back tomorrow, and every night 'til he does," answered Frodo. "We must settle this before Thimula tries to move in. I won't have her meeting a ghost in her own home." Although that was precisely what he meant to do now, he found he wasn't as frightened as he thought he'd be: meeting the ghost of a mere Man, however wretched, wasn't as terrible a prospect as confronting Saruman's vengeful spirit. He could face Wormtongue, living or dead.

Bracing himself, he called out: "Grima Wormtongue! Are you here? Show yourself."

There was no reply, except for a faint whisper of disturbed dust settling.

After waiting for some minutes for Wormtongue to appear, they left the bedroom and went in search of him, moving as quietly as only hobbits could. Frodo walked ahead, bearing his candle before him; Sam followed cautiously, peering into the shadows of every nook and doorway they passed. Thimula had done some cleaning in the front rooms, but the cobwebs still hung thick overhead in the rest of the house. The slender tips of tree roots that had broken through the plaster plucked at their sleeves and trouser legs, and the dust from the fallen plaster caked the bottoms of their feet. The Sackville Place was a spacious home, taking up most of the hilltop, but as they crept down the darkened corridors from room to empty room, it seemed enormous--even larger than Brandy Hall.

Then, in one long and windowless tunnel on the westward side of the house, Sam suddenly froze in his tracks. "D'you hear that?" he hissed to Frodo, who was several feet farther along the hallway. "That isn't no echo!"

Frodo heard it too: the soft sound of footsteps. No, it couldn't be an echo tonight, for neither of them was moving. The sound was coming from some distant part of the house--slow, steady, measured thumps, heavier than a hobbit's feet. The rusted hinge of a door or window-shutter creaked, and the thumps grew a little louder. "I think it's coming nearer," he hissed in reply.

Sam nodded, then his gaze focused on a point beyond Frodo and he gasped.

Frodo whirled around to see the dark-clad, ashen-faced figure standing at the end of the tunnel behind him, staring at him intensely with black and rheumy eyes. Frodo couldn't be frightened by this apparition; Wormtongue's ghost looked more pitiful than terrifying, for those eyes fixed upon him held no malice, only the bleak sadness of long suffering without hope of release. Whatever kept his spirit here, it was a torment.

"Grima," Frodo addressed him. It seemed disrespectful and not at all productive to call the dead Man by his usual nickname. "Do you remember me? You once spared my life, and struck at Saruman when you might've killed me instead at his command. I can't forget that and because of it, I believe you are not beyond reach." The figure did not move. "It must be awful to be trapped here, alone, restless and driven to walk the night. We've come to help free you, if we can." Frodo took a tentative step forward--with Sam stepping up quickly, protectively, to his side--but before they could approach the figure, it vanished.

"What is it you want?" Frodo demanded of the empty air. "What can we do to see you to rest?"

As if in answer, they heard the footsteps retreating rapidly through the darkened house, and a door's hinges creaked, then another door much farther away. "Come on, Sam! He's leading us!" Frodo said before darting down the passageway in the direction of the sound.

The tunnel led into another that turned toward the back of the house. The door connecting them stood slightly ajar; Frodo pushed through it and raced on. His candle had gone out, but there was a faint, silvery light coming through an open door or window ahead and he went toward it.

He was out-of-doors before he realized it. Sam, who had been running to keep up with him, now ran into him and nearly knocked him over.

They were standing in a grassy dell at the bottom of the garden. The open door, now behind them, was at the back of the house, just before the brick-lined tunnel that led to the kitchen; the turf-covered roof of this tunnel also lay behind them, and a bright, silvery full moon had risen above it. Frodo turned quickly away from it--since the incident at the standing stones in Budlingsbank last autumn, he could never bear to look at the "face" of the full moon.

In the moonlight, another white face was visible. A dark-clad figure stood on the rising ground above the dell, not five yards away--but it was no ghost. Thimula was staring with wide and astonished eyes at some distant point among a line of trees.

"So that's a ghost..." Thimula said in a dazed voice. "I've never seen one before."

"What're you doing here, Miss?" asked Sam as he scrambled after Frodo up the bank of the dell to reach her.

"I saw the lights," she answered, still dazed but pulling herself together. "After dinner, I thought I'd go and have another talk with Mr. Bogwater--not about the ghost, but about Selbry and his friends. It occurred to me it would be fitting to have them do some of the heavy work in fixing the place up, since I didn't leave the fish for them to clear away and I wouldn't dream of asking them for the money they made from the trout. I thought they might knock down and bury the rubble of the old kitchens." Her eyes had remained fixed on the darkness under a line of trees while she was speaking, but now she turned to Frodo. "On my way across the Hodberry fields to the cottage, I saw candlelight flickering up here through the windows. And I knew who it was." There was a note of reproach in her voice. "I should've known right away that you'd come back here tonight and leave me out of it!"

"I didn't want you running into the ghost," Frodo said apologetically, since that was precisely what Thimula had done.

"I was trying to follow the lights within the house whenever I saw them, to find where you were," Thimula went on. "It looked as if you were headed toward the back of the house... and then that door flew open." She indicated the door Sam and Frodo had just emerged through. "That thing came rushing past me. I felt it before I saw it--like a dark blast of wind." She shuddered.

"Are you all right, Thimula?" Frodo asked her, taking her arm.

"I'm fine," she insisted, but she still looked somewhat shaken by her experience, and Frodo led her away from the house to find a seat on a fallen tree not far from the remains of the bonfire Thimula had built earlier in the day. There were still some embers glowing within the pile of ashes and warmth radiated from it, a slight but welcome comfort to all three hobbits as the night grew chilly.

"You ought to go back down the hill to the farm, Miss," Sam suggested.

"I ought to stay," Thimula answered with surprising determination. "Surely the worst has occurred. I've seen the ghost--it was rather a shock, but I'll be better prepared for it next time. Besides, it is my house. I know I engaged you to investigate the haunting of the Old Sackville Place, but it isn't fair that I go back to the Hodberries for a cup of tea and a good night's sleep and leave you here. I couldn't, knowing what you'd be facing."

"But we might be out here all night, chasing after it," Sam responded. "We're used to such odd business, but `tisn't fitting for a lady and, begging your pardon, Miss, but atop all else, it wouldn't be proper for you to stay on."

Thimula stared at him. "Improper? How?"

"It'd cause talk," explained Sam. "An unmarried lady spending the night out with two- ah-"

"Gents," Frodo supplied, amused.

"Yes," Sam went on, bashful at having this word applied to him, but ploughing on to make his point. "If you're meaning to make a home here in Sackville, Miss Bracegirdle, you don't want to have the neighbors gossiping about your comings-and-goings before you even settle in."

Thimula also looked amused but touched as she said, "I daresay you're right, Mr. Gamgee, but I am here and any damage to my reputation is done. So I might as well stay at least a little while longer and try to help you to rid my house of that thing. If we can't do so, it doesn't matter what the folk of Sackville have to say about me."

After four and a half years of marriage, Sam knew when it was useless to go on arguing with a woman. He relit the candles and Frodo settled down in the grass to discuss the problem with Thimula. If the flickering lights were seen in the village, they might be taken for new evidence of the haunting, but none of the three needed further proof themselves.

Now that she was recovering from seeing Wormtongue's ghost for herself, Thimula seemed more angry than frightened. "I can't live in a house with that horrid thing! I certainly couldn't bring children here to live. And I couldn't rent it to anyone else."

"You can still marry and live in Hobbiton," Frodo tried to console her.

"Yes, I know, but this house seemed perfect for what I wanted. I felt so the moment I saw it. It's in shambles, but I could see what it had once been, and what it might be again if it had someone to care for it. And I do care for it! You have such a lovely house yourself, Frodo. You and the Gamgees. You must understand what I feel."

Frodo said that he did, and Sam nodded in sympathetic agreement.

"Did you see him in the house?" Thimula asked them. "Did he say anything to you that will help me get rid of him?"

"He didn't speak, but I think Wormtongue was trying to tell us something," Frodo told her. "He led us deliberately outdoors. Where was he going to?"

"I really couldn't say," answered Thimula. "It brushed past so quickly--it almost touched me! That was all I could think about until you came out the same door. It went into the trees and disappeared..."

Frodo twisted around to find the trees Thimula had been staring at; only the tops were visible from where he was sitting, but he could see that they were planted in two straight lines, like an avenue, leading away from the back of the house. Surely they must be leading to something as well? A back entrance to the garden? A terrace? He couldn't recall noticing any such features when he and Sam had walked around the foot of the hill earlier in the day. "What's over there?" He wondered aloud, and then a memory of his previous visit to the Old Sackville Place came to him. He'd sat on the lawn while his friends had disposed of Wormtongue's body. "Sam, is that where the family vault is?"

"That's right," Sam confirmed. "There's a path under those trees, all but grown over. It goes down the side o' the hill a bit, and there's a door."

"You put his- ah- him there?" asked Thimula.

"Yes, Miss. It seemed only decent. We couldn't leave 'm lying out for the rats--and only think what the next person to come into the house would've found!"

"Instead of only an odd stain on the floor," said Thimula musingly. "I wondered what that could be. Do you think he wanted to show you where he was buried, Frodo? Perhaps he doesn't like it, where he is."

"If he doesn't, then there's not much we can do," said Sam with an eye on Thimula; he didn't wish to distress her by discussing these distasteful subjects, but Thimula seemed unmoved by the grisly details of burial. She had, after all, recently managed the funeral arrangements for her aunt. "We couldn't move 'm now. I wouldn't like to try, not after four years. There might be naught left to 'm but the bones, but I wouldn't like it all the same. Best to let 'm lie there in peace."

"But he isn't at peace, Mr. Gamgee. What's left of his mortal remains might be lying at rest, but something's disturbing his spirit and making it unable to rest."

"Sam..." Frodo's mind was still turning as his friends talked. What could be keeping Wormtongue's spirit bound to this place and in torment? Was it guilt for his crimes, or could it be something more tangible? An idea occurred to him. "Sam, when you and Merry and Pippin carried him out there--how? How did you bear him?"

"`Twasn't easy, even with the three of us to give a hand," Sam answered. "A Big's a heavy burden, even a shriveled-up little Big like that feller."

"What did you use?"

"Use?" Sam echoed.

"Yesterday, when we first went into that room where he and Saruman died, I noticed that Saruman's robes were gone." Frodo explained to Thimula: "When the wizard died, his physical form dissolved immediately. Only his clothes remained--a long white robe and cloak." Then he turned back to Sam, "You wrapped him up in them, didn't you? You used them to carry him out to the vault?"

Sam nodded. "It wasn't wrong of us, was it, Frodo? It seemed fitting, and there wasn't anything else to hand but the dirty bedsheets and the dustcovers."

"No, Sam. You did what seemed best at the time."

"But could that be what's keeping him here?" asked Thimula. "The robes have trapped his spirit--is that what you believe, Frodo?"

"I don't know, but it is possible. A wizard's robes aren't simply clothing. The Elves weave the cloth and embroider it with their own symbols. They wouldn't call it magical, but it does hold powers we don't fully understand. In any case, he meant to lead us toward the vault, and to the vault we ought to go. While we're there, I suggest we take and destroy Saruman's robes. If that's not what Grima Wormtongue wants of us, I feel sure he'll let us know."

The three hobbits made their way along the overgrown path beneath the old trees. Although the trees were beginning to lose their leaves, enough remained to block the moonlight, and the light from the candles seemed strangely dimmed; they couldn't see what lay ahead.

The path sloped slightly downward and, at last, a silvery glow of light appeared at the far end. They emerged at the top of a stair made of broad stone slabs set into the northern slope of the hill. Frodo immediately saw why he had failed to see these from below; more trees and shrubs were planted below to block the view from the bottom of the hill. However, they had a spectacular view of Rushock Bog to the north, its rising mists glowing white.

The stair ended in a small flagstone terrace with enough room for perhaps ten or twelve hobbits to stand. A low stone platform was set at one end, to set the bier upon. A round oaken and brass-plated door was cut into the hillside behind it. As they approached, the door slowly swung open.

Thimula gulped. "You may've been right, Mr. Gamgee. This is no proper place for a lady." But she stayed where she was and did not turn to flee back up the stair.

"I'll go in," Sam declared.

"Alone?" asked Frodo.

"If you don't mind sitting to keep Miss Bracegirdle company out here. You shouldn't go in yourself, Frodo. It isn't fit for gentlefolk--them who aren't born for it."

Frodo might have pointed out that Merry and Pippin had accompanied Sam before, and they were among the highest-born hobbits in the land, but he refrained. He knew Sam had different rules of conduct where his protection was concerned.

"Now, I know just where he was laid out, and I expect he's still right where we put 'm," Sam went on. "I'll fetch the robes off around what's left o' him, and be back in a trice." With that, he slipped through the open door.

Thimula sank down onto the platform. "He's an extremely brave hobbit."

"The bravest I know," Frodo agreed as he sat beside her. "He's done even more brave things on my behalf."

"Mm, yes. You've said so before, but I haven't read that far in the tales of your adventures yet--only up to the part where you meet that strange Big Man in Bree who turns out to be the King." Thimula paused, then ventured, "Mr. Gamgee--your Sam--is devoted to you. I can see that."

Frodo made a hesitant sound of agreement, recognizing this as a prelude to more personal questions about his friendship with Sam. Thimula surely must have guessed at the truth already, or perhaps Angelica had told her something about it.

Before the conversation could go any further, they both heard a startled, choked-off cry from within the Sackville family vault. Frodo was instantly on his feet. "Sam!" He rushed to the open door just as Sam emerged, dragging a mass of dirty white cloth after him. It might be the flickering candlelight on his face, but Frodo thought his friend had a sickened expression. "Are you all right?"

"'M fine," Sam answered, and shut the vault door. "I got the robes." Then he leaned closer to Frodo's ear and murmured. "Don't tell her--he wasn't where we left 'm. I tripped over him, that's all."

Frodo was horrified, but there wasn't time to ask Sam for more information; Thimula had also left her seat and was approaching them. Composing himself before he turned to her, he said, "We have what we came for. Let's stir up the embers of your bonfire, and see if we can be rid of the ghost."

As they went back up the stair and along the dark path under the trees, they thought they heard the sound of boot-heels clicking on the paving stones behind, but they didn't look back to see if they were being followed. Sam raked up the remains of the bonfire Thimula had built and fed it a few twigs to nurse it into a small blaze. When the fire was lively enough, he touched one corner of the robes to it. The cloth caught immediately and flame swiftly traveled along the length of the garment. For a few minutes, the flames rose high--they must surely be seen in Sackville.

Frodo looked up from the fire to see a dark figure in the shadows by the house. It was there only for a moment, but as the flames began to dwindle and the last shreds of Saruman's robes were consumed, it faded away. He hoped that it wouldn't be back ever again, and Thimula would have her home.

When the fire had completely died down, Thimula said, "Well, that's that," bade Frodo and Sam goodnight, thanked them for a most interesting adventure, and got up to leave. Frodo meant to accompany her, but had something he had to ask Sam first. He waited until she had walked some distance away across the overgrown garden toward the front gate, then scooted closer to Sam, who was still seated on the grass.

"What did you mean, 'He wasn't where we left him'?" he murmured.

"Just that," Sam answered in an undertone. "He was a-lying on the floor 'tween the shelf where we put 'm and the door."

"Someone had been in there before us, and moved the body? Not…" Frodo shuddered, "not the rats?"

Sam shook his head. "Maybe he rolled off, accidental-like, but it seems to me he mightn't've been quite dead when we put 'm there."

"Oh, Sam, no..."

"He had those wizard's robes all tangled 'round him," Sam went on quickly. "I had to give a quick tug and shake all the loose bones out of 'em before you and Miss Bracegirdle came in after me. There're all scattered about. Whyn't you go see her back to the farm?" he suggested. "I'll go down to that vault after you're gone and put the bones back on the shelf, all laid out proper this time. Maybe then he'll rest quiet and not trouble her again."