The one-hundred-and-first birthday of Miss Dora Baggins was to be celebrated with a party of special magnificence--not, perhaps, as magnificent as her long-missing cousin Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday had been, but Miss Baggins was still ten years away from that auspicious anniversary herself. She was nevertheless one of the most prominent residents of Hobbiton and her birthday was considered an event worthy of local celebration. If a maiden-lady could be said to be a matriarch, then Dora was matriarch of the Baggins family. She was certainly and incontestably the head of the Bagginses, for they'd all been recipients of her generosity at one time or another, and they all listened politely to her advice even if they didn't always heed it.

On the day before Miss Baggins's birthday, great canopied tents were raised and spread between the trees in the meadow next to the Old Baggins Place. Long tables and benches were set out beneath this temporary shelter so that the party guests could sit and eat in comfort and the older folk could rest out of the sun. A great many old folk, Dora's contemporaries, had been invited. Kitchens for miles around were busy helping to prepare the vast amounts of food required to feed all of the lady's guests. Dora's kitchen was busier than any other, but on the evening before the party, she invited a few special guests, her favorite relatives, to a private dinner: her nephew Frodo, Ponto and Porto Baggins and their wives, Ponto's daughter Angelica Whitfoot and her husband Lad. Ponto's and Porto's sister Peony Burrows and her husband Milo, who lived with Dora, were also there with their four children.

After dinner, the children went to have a look around the field prepared for the party and Milo took the other gentlemen outdoors to smoke. Dora gathered her niece, nieces-by-marriage, and great-niece into the best parlor to give them their birthday gifts. "I've decided that it's time to give away my jewelry to all of you," the elderly lady announced as she sat down with an elaborately carved box in her lap.

"Frodo too?" asked Porto's wife, Gilliflora, and regarded the young male hobbit with curiosity. Dora had specially requested that her nephew forego his after-dinner pipe this once to receive some presents as well.

"Frodo wears jewelry," said Peony, teasing. "Haven't you noticed that lovely little gemstone in the odd setting that's always around his neck? You can see it whenever he wears an open-collared shirt."

"I've noticed. It's Elvish, isn't it?" Angelica asked Frodo.

Frodo nodded. He wasn't wearing an open-collared shirt tonight, but his fingers went to the stock at his throat and carefully drew out the gem on its chain for the ladies to see. "It's a gift from Queen Arwen," he told them amid their exclamations of curiosity and appreciation. That was as much as he could explain. They knew nothing of the Elessar's fabulous history among the Elves as a gem of great healing powers; that this gem was also a token of his passage to the Undying Lands when he grew too ill to continue living on Middle-Earth would be too upsetting for them to learn, not to mention difficult to understand.

"Well, I don't have anything as pretty as that for you, Frodo dear, though I'd once hoped that most of my precious things would go to you to give to your wife and pass on to your daughters one day," Dora said briskly after a moment. Unlike the younger hobbits, she had little interest in Elves or the world beyond the Shire. As much as she loved Frodo, she was also piqued at no longer being the focus of attention during what was meant to be her own special occasion. "Everyone tells me you won't ever marry. I can't say I understand why. You're such a handsome boy, and you have such a lovely home. I'm sure any reasonable girl would be happy to accept you." Dora cast a wry glance at Angelica; she'd once hoped that her great-niece would become Frodo's wife so that she could happily bestow her jewelry, her home, and other possessions on them both. She opened her jewelry box. "But I want to give you something for yourself."

From her jewelry box, Dora brought out several small velvet bags and carefully untied the ancient ribbons that held each shut. She opened and peeked into each until she found what she was looking for: a delicate silver brooch with a spray of amethysts fashioned to look like a sprig of lilac. This, she gave to Frodo. "There you are, my dear. A gentleman might wear that on his coat lapel."

"Thank you, Auntie," Frodo said, and pinned this gift to his lapel exactly as Dora had suggested.

His aunt resumed her sorting through the velvet bags. "And I must give you a trinket or two to set by for the little Gamgee girls." The Gamgee children had stayed at the Old Place for awhile after Rosie's death, and Dora had become very fond of them. "They aren't family, of course, but I see that you mean to do all you can for them, Frodo. Such sweet, pretty darlings they are--but such a fuss poor baby Rosemary made when we had her here! Teething, you know, but we soon put that right with a remedy my own mother passed down to me. I made sure Golda used it when Angelica was a baby, and Angelica had it when her own children's teeth were coming in." From one of the bags, Dora brought out a necklace and pair of bracelets made of polished moonstones, which she also gave to Frodo. "You must have Sam Gamgee put them away someplace safe until his daughters are old enough to wear them. I daresay they won't remember me when they're grown, but you'll tell them all about me, won't you?"

Frodo promised that he would.

"Pretty things, moonstones," his aunt went on as she sorted out the rest of her jewelry to bestow gifts on the others: gold earrings and garnet combs for Angelica, an emerald brooch and pendant for Peony, smaller trinkets to be set aside for their own daughters, and necklaces for Golda and Gilliflora. "Not as pretty as pearls, I think, but not so rare either. Pearls are such a strange sort of stone. I must say, I've always wondered how they contrive to make them all so perfectly round and shining. It must take a great deal of polishing."

"Pearls aren't stones," Frodo told her. "They grow inside a kind of shell-fish that lives in sandy beds on the shores of the Sea and look rather like lumpy little rocks themselves. I've seen them at Minas Tirith--the King's city. They're considered a great delicacy there. They say if you find a pearl in your dinner, it's good luck."

"The things you've seen on your travels, Frodo!" Golda laughed.

Dora seemed rather doubtful of this story, as if she suspected her nephew of making up tall tales to tease her. "Prisca must be the luckiest of hobbits, then," she said.

"Aunt Prisca...?" Frodo took a moment to puzzle out how she had come into the conversation. Prisca Baggins was Dora's cousin, the sister of Ponto's, Porto's, and Peony's late father. She was within a year or two of Dora's own age and from the stories he'd heard, Frodo surmised that the two had been rivals since girlhood. Prisca, however, had become an invalid in recent years, afflicted with rheumatics which kept her at home much of the time and prevented her from joining the social activities that Dora still enjoyed. He recalled that Prisca owned a string of pearls that Dora envied.

"They were a gift from a suitor of hers," Dora said when Frodo spoke of Prisca's pearls. "I've no idea where he got them from. Bought from dwarves, I thought at the time, but if they come from the Sea as you say they do, then I don't really know. It's hard to imagine dwarves diving into the Sea to fetch lumpy little fish that look like rocks, isn't it?" She smiled at her nephew to let him know that she was in on his joke.

"Is Aunt Prisca coming to the party tomorrow?" Angelica asked.

"I extended an invitation personally when I called on her earlier this week," Dora responded. "She said she hoped to attend if it wasn't a wet day. The damp makes her legs ache terribly, you know."

The older ladies made sympathetic noises. "Ponto told me yesterday that if the weather is fine, she intends to hire someone to bring her out in a chair," said Golda. "That'll be a remarkable sight!"

"Do you suppose she'll wear her pearls on such a grand occasion?" Peony said.

Dora shook her head. "No, I don't think so, my dear. She never wears them, and hardly ever brings them out to show. She keeps them locked up in a special box--she opened it to show them to me once ages ago--it must be twenty or thirty years past. I'll wager it's been that long since they've seen the light of day."

"She showed them to me when I was visiting at Yuletide," said Angelica. "I'd heard so much about them when I was a little girl, but I'd never seen them before. They were lovely. I don't think I've seen gemstones, or whatever they are, more beautiful."

"I suppose she intends to leave them to you, Angelica dear?" Gilliflora asked her.

"She didn't say," Angelica answered. "She might leave them to Mother to leave to me later on, or else she might leave them to Aunt Peony."

Hobbit ladies traditionally handed down their jewelry to their daughters, the best pieces to the eldest. If they had no daughters of their own, then their treasures went to granddaughters, nieces, or other female relatives. Peony was Prisca's only niece, but Angelica was the only daughter of her eldest nephew. Which relationship took precedence was therefore a rather difficult question; however, speculation favored Angelica, for Prisca doted on her great-niece and she did not approve of Peony's husband Milo.

"It doesn't matter so much to me," Peony said generously. "I only think that they ought to be worn sometime by somebody. It seems such a shame to have anything so rare and precious go to waste."

"I ought to call on Aunt Prisca before the party. If it's not too late, I'll go this evening." When little group broke up later that evening and the guests rose to leave, Angelica bent to give her great-aunt a peck on the cheek. "Thank you for the earrings, Auntie," she said. "Will you walk over with me, Mother, Aunt Gilly?"

The first guests for Dora's birthday party began to arrive shortly before noon the next day, just in time for luncheon.. Tea and supper would also be provided, but between these regular meals, plenty of drink and lighter refreshments would be served. Musicians were engaged to play throughout the day, except when they took breaks for their own meals, and a wide circle at the center of the meadow had been left clear for dancing. Games and races were planned for children of various ages, and more complicated contests for adults. Prizes were to be given. It was a beautiful, sunny summer's day, with no sign of the feared rain.

Sam's children had been dressed long before midday and were only waiting for the grown-ups to be ready too. When they heard the first strains of music coming up from the foot of the Hill, Elanor and little Frodo were unable to sit still for another minute and clamored to go down to the party right away. Sam asked Frodo and Pippin, who'd come up specially from Tuckborough to play his banjolele and perform conjuring tricks, to take the children down.

Once she was out the front door, four-year-old Elanor raced down the Hill ahead of Frodo and Pippin and the younger children. The little girl was halfway down the Hill lane before she realized that her father wasn't with them. "Where's Daddy?" she demanded and, without waiting for an answer, dashed back up to Bag End to find him still at the front door and ask, "Aren't you coming too, Daddy?"

"I'm sorry, Nel," Sam answered. "Daddy's just not feeling up to a party today." Although he'd recovered from the worst of his grief, he was still in mourning for Rosie.

"It might do you some good to get out-of-doors and into the sunshine for awhile," said Pippin, who had chased the little girl back to the garden gate. Frodo stood waiting farther down the lane, left behind with his namesake, the twins, and Pippin's banjolele. "We won't have very much fun if we have to think of you sitting up here alone."

When his daughter began to tug on his hand, Sam relented and joined them. He didn't participate in the merry-making, but sat at a trestle at the end of the tented trees, where Peony had laid out a blanket in the shade for the twins. The two older children had joined the racing contests not far away, so Sam could also look up every time they shouted, "Watch me, Daddy!"

"I know he's got good reasons for it, but I hate to see poor Sam so gloomy," Pippin said to Frodo after they'd helped themselves to lunch; Frodo had taken a plate over to Sam, but he hadn't touched it yet and had expressed a desire to be left alone. "Can't you do anything to cheer him up?"

"I do try," Frodo replied. "And he is getting better. He has his cheerful days when he's almost like his old self. I've even seen him laugh once or twice. But then something makes him think of Rosie, and it comes back over him again, as it did this morning." If Frodo had to guess, he would say that it was tying ribbons in his daughter's hair that had sent Sam into this present fit of gloom; Rosie often wore ribbons when she was going to parties, and would have done so if she were with them today. "It must be very hard, losing a wife. It's only been a few months, Pip. It'll take some time for him to put aside this grief."

"Why don't you ask him to dance?" asked Pippin. "That might do the trick."

Frodo smiled. "I wouldn't mind, but dancing might remind him even more of Rosie. Besides, I don't think Sam is ready to make such a public declaration yet. It's still too soon."

"When I was last here, you said you didn't care what people thought."

"I don't. We've decided that we won't try to keep our private lives a secret anymore, but we aren't looking for opportunities for scandal just the same. People will think what they like about us no matter what we do."

"I suppose you know best about that," Pippin said musingly over his plate of cold ham and chicken. "Maybe I'll ask him later on, when I'm not playing." He concentrated on finishing his lunch so that he could join the musicians, but had only cleared half his plate before his attention was distracted. "Hullo! Frodo, look--What's this thing coming down the road?"

Frodo turned to look. A strange procession was headed up the lane toward the Old Place: four sturdy hobbits were carrying a wooden armchair, the legs of which had been sawn off short and replaced by long, horizontal poles. Seated atop this chair was an elderly lady in a lace-trimmed cap and shawl, holding an open umbrella over her head to shield her from the bright sun. Another woman, middle-aged and more plainly dressed, walked behind them.

"It's Great-aunt Prisca," Frodo said. As the old lady was carried into the meadow, he went to join the other Bagginses who were coming forward to welcome her.

"Prisca dear!" cried Dora once Prisca's chair was set down near the tented trees. "How wonderful that you could come after all. What a splendid idea!"

"I wouldn't dream of missing your party, as long as the weather permitted my coming out-of-doors." Now that she was safely in the shade, Prisca furled her umbrella; using it as a cane, she rose slowly from her chair and hobbled two steps forward to meet her cousin for an exchange of hugs and pecks on the cheek. "Happy birthday, Dora."

Although there was a marked family resemblance between the two elderly ladies, Prisca Baggins was a larger and plumper hobbit than the diminutive Dora, and had grown larger and plumper still since her invalid status kept her frequently bedridden and inactive. Frodo recalled that she'd been an impressive and somewhat fearsome figure before her illness; while she could be kind to her favorite younger relations, she had no patience with fools. As she looked at the relatives now gathered around her, a sharp glint in her eyes suggested that this impatience with folly had not mellowed with age.

With Milo's arm offered as an additional support, Prisca took a few more steps to sit down at a bench at the nearest table. "Lina!" she summoned her attendant nurse, the quiet middle-aged lady who had accompanied her, to fetch refreshments. The chair-bearers were dismissed to get their own luncheon.

Angelica had delivered a birthday gift to Prisca from Dora the night before, a butterfly brooch made up of multiple tiny gemstones. Prisca was wearing it to pin a large piece of lace around her shoulders. "It was very kind of you, Dora," she said as she lay a hand over the brooch on her lace-covered bosom. "I didn't expect anything so fine. Angelica tells you gave her some very pretty things too. You were always generous, since you were a girl."

"I can be generous with some things," Dora replied. "I never wear jewelry anymore, and I decided that there's no sense leaving it to gather dust `til I pass on and my dearest family members receive it anyway." This was meant to be pointed remark; Prisca nodded and smiled.

"That's so, Dora dear," she answered. "We mustn't make the young folks wait. And, after all, I might not outlive you."

After greeting her nephews, their wives, and the others who had come to greet her, Prisca turned her attention to her cousins Falco Chubb-Baggins and Odo Proudfoot. While the young folk dispersed, these older hobbits remained chatting about the days of their mutual youth. The band struck up a lively tune and Pippin went to join them. Frodo didn't dance with Sam, but throughout the afternoon he took turns with several of his female relatives: Angelica and Peony, Peony's daughter Myrtle, Poppy Bolger and Ruby Chubb, Thimula Bracegirdle, and his cousin Dandro Chubb's bride Coralinda. Peony, Thimula, and Angelica each offered to dance with Sam; he refused, but the ladies remained to keep him company or play with the babies. As Thimula had once observed, a widower with small children was an attractive object to women. Even if they were already married or spoken for, he and the motherless little ones excited their sympathy. Frodo felt sure that, if they were not aware that Sam was 'his,' the ladies would be trying to introduce Sam to some unmarried friend of theirs.

When Frodo wasn't dancing, he briefly joined Sam himself, or participated in some of the grown-up contests or helped to supervise the children's games. Elanor insisted on competing in them all. She was too young and uncoordinated to do well in the three-legged race and the egg-and-spoon, but she won the barnyard call match-up with her best friend Willa Whitfoot, to the delight of both little girls. When the children were tired of running around and the grown-ups had had enough dancing, they sat down on the grass and Pippin astonished them with some of the conjuring tricks he'd learned during his travels with Mr. Grimmold's circus.

At tea-time, enormous urns of hot tea were brought out with cups and saucers and fresh treats--platters crowded with scones, cakes, sandwiches, and a number of deep-dish cherry pies. This last was a popular item, for the first ripe cherries of the season had just been picked and brought to market that week.

Once Frodo had obtained his cup of tea and plate of treats, he joined Sam, who was sitting with his infant son Pip in his lap and feeding him some of the filling from his slice of pie. Frodo thought the pie was overly sweet, but from his puckered face, the baby seemed to find it too tart. Little Frodo and Angelica's son Adalmo were seated on the grass nearby, their hands, faces, and clothing already a sticky red mess from the piece of pie they were sharing. They were speaking in an enthusiastic and incoherent burst of toddler babble that was hard enough to understand even when their mouths weren't full, but it was clear that they were having a wonderful day.

Since no one was dancing, the musicians had stopped playing and went to get their own refreshments before all of the pie was gone. Pippin soon sat down on the grass with the little boys and shared another slice of pie with them.

"That's not going to wash out easily," said Thimula, who had just taken a seat across from Frodo at the same table with her betrothed Rubar Chinhold and his three children, who were all old enough to have table manners and no Took 'uncle' to encourage them. "Cherry juice never does."

"It doesn't matter," said Frodo. "We didn't dress the little ones in their very best today." He didn't know what Angelica would say when she saw her own son; she had taken charge of Elanor and Rosemary along with her daughter at another table. "I thought they'd be impossible to keep neat while they were playing, and it wasn't worthwhile to worry about them ruining their clothes when they're meant to have fun. Elanor's wearing her best party dress, but she insisted on it."

Thimula smiled at him. "You sound as if you're becoming accustomed to caring for children, Frodo. So am I."

Although he knew he was unsuitable to replace Rosie for a number of obvious reasons, Frodo was trying his best to look after her husband and children. He'd never taken much interest in the management of his own household before, preferring to leave that to Sam and Rosie while he pursued his own work. But now, even with the servants he'd hired, he had to pay more attention to his home and the people within it. "I've still a great deal to learn," he admitted. "It hasn't been an easy task. The nursery-maid has been of enormous help. I'm still a little afraid of babies, especially when they start to howl for no discernable reason, but I'm teaching Elanor how to read, and telling her something of Elvish lore and history."

"Will you let her read your book when she's old enough?" Thimula leaned over the table to address him confidentially. "I've been meaning to return it to you for weeks now, Frodo. There never seems to be a convenient time, not since-" She nodded her head in the direction of Sam, who was scolding Pippin for getting the two little boys into a worse mess, but didn't really sound angry. In fact, Frodo thought his friend's mood had improved since midday. "It's a remarkable story. I sometimes find it hard to believe it's all true. The ending isn't."

"No, it isn't," Frodo agreed. "But everything else is. I wanted to write my own story of my adventure to see that the truth was told about me and the Ring, and what happened. They tell such nonsense about my being a hero out in the Big World."

"If it is true, I would say they're quite right about your heroism! But I've wanted to ask why you wrote that ending to it all, with Sam and your friends seeing you sail away over the Sea with the Elves. It's a beautiful ending to the story, Frodo--I nearly wept when I read it--but I know it can't possibly have happened. You're still here."

"We did go to the Grey Havens the winter before last, Sam, Pippin, Merry Brandybuck and I," Frodo answered. "We rode with the Elves, my uncle Bilbo, and my friend Gandalf, just as I've written it. I meant to go with them over the Sea--at least, I thought that I might. I hadn't quite made up my mind. It seemed the most fitting end to my adventure, and it still does. That's why I wrote my ending that way. But when it came to the point and the ship was about to sail, I realized that I wasn't yet ready to do it. I still had something of my life here left to live, and I couldn't leave Sam." He turned to smile at his friend, although Sam didn't see. "I certainly couldn't leave him now. It'll be some time before I can truly go over the Sea."

"I'm glad you've decided to stay," said Thimula. "But that place--the land over the Sea where the Elves go to and never die? It is real, isn't it?"

"So the Elves say, and I've no reason to disbelieve them. I suppose that someday-"

"Here, what this?" Rubar spoke up suddenly. "A cherry-stone?" He spit it out into the palm of his hand. Even from the other side of the table, Frodo could see that the object wasn't a pit from a cherry at all, but a smooth and perfectly round ball of iridescent white a little smaller than a pea. Rubar held it up between his thumb and forefinger. "What is it? It looks like a pebble."

"Is it a pearl?" asked Thimula, peering closely at it. "I've never seen one before!"

But she was destined to see many pearls that day. At other tables, other party guests were making surprised sounds as they also discovered "stones" in their cherry pie. Little Frodo, Adalmo, and the baby in Sam's lap crowed with laughter and clapped their hands when Pippin spit one out.

Once all the pearls had been collected and washed in one of the tubs set up in the makeshift kitchen at the end of the tents nearest to the Old Place, they were counted. There were twenty-six in all, each with a tiny hole drilled through the middle. They had obviously been originally strung together to form a necklace. Part of a little gold clasp was also discovered.

"These are mine," Prisca identified them once she saw the clasp. "I thought the pearls must be, of course, since no one else in this part of the Shire has a string to match mine, but see here-" She held the clasp up to catch a ray of sunlight. "Those are my initials and the others below are those of the gentleman who gave the pearls to me, and the date 1354." Having established her claim, she took a handkerchief from the bodice of her dress and, laying it flat on the table before her, began to gather her pearls upon it. "These will have to be restrung now. They had the same string for eighty years or more. I wonder if it was cut, or baked away?"

"It looks as if it baked away, Aunt Prisca," said Frodo. He'd been examining the plates the pie had been served upon and found fragments of string stuck to the crust at the bottom, stained a dark red and crisply browned at the ends with exposure to heat. He'd also made note of whom had found pearls in their pie and had spoken to the hobbits who were serving the tea. No one had asked him to do these things, but his curiosity had been roused and, as Hobbiton's famous detective and the hostess's nephew, he was in a good position to gratify his desire for information about this most peculiar incident. As far as he could tell, the pearls had all been in the last pie served; there had been a dozen in all, and two were still sitting uncut. "I'd say that the necklace went into this pie whole before it went into the oven."

"But who would do such a odd thing?" wondered Peony, and immediately began to look uncomfortable. Her brothers and their wives also seemed embarrassed.

"Could you have dropped them into the pie, Auntie?" Ponto suggested gently, and received a withering look from the elderly lady.

"Certainly not!" retorted Prisca. "I wasn't wearing my pearls today, and I never saw this pie before a piece of it was set before me."

"This pie didn't come from your house, Aunt Prisca?" Frodo asked her.

"No." She fixed him with a sharp eye, deciding that he was less of a fool than Ponto. "It's been a long time since I've been able to stand and work in my own kitchen, Frodo Baggins, and even when I did, I didn't do my baking in my best dress and pearls!"

"When did you miss your pearls, Auntie?" Frodo asked next.

"I never did," the old lady admitted. "If you'd asked me this morning, I would've said that they were safely locked up just as they've always been."

"When did you last have them out?"

"Weeks ago. Lina!" Prisca shouted for her attendant, who'd been observing the gathering, washing, and counting of the pearls with astonishment; she was not the only one, for many of the hobbits had left off their tea to come and watch these proceedings. "When did I last ask you to fetch down my jewelry box?"

"It was Yuletide, Miss Baggins, when Mrs. Whitfoot came to call." Lina bowed her head respectfully to indicate Angelica. Angelica was looking indignant, but she had been before her name had been mentioned.

"They might've gone any time since then," Prisca said to Frodo. "It's too much trouble for me to go home again--I came to enjoy a party, and I mean to stay until I've had my full amusement. Lina, take Frodo here to my house and show him the jewelry box." She folded up the handkerchief with the pearls and clasp inside and carefully tucked them back into her lace-covered bodice. "I don't go out much these days, but I hear what everyone says about you, Frodo-lad. Dora tells me about all your adventures." She glanced at her cousin. "'Missing jewels.' Well, mine have been found without your help, but I'd dearly love to discover how they came to be in such a peculiar place, and more important than that--who put them there?"

---

After telling Sam that he had an errand and wouldn't be gone long, Frodo accompanied Lina to Prisca's smial in the low, rolling hills between Hobbiton and Overhill. The old lady's home wasn't far from her nephews' and wasn't half as grand as the Old Place; Prisca had taken a home of her own after the death of her father and had remained there since, determined to go on living alone in spite of her increasing age and infirmity. Hiring a nurse to look after her was her only concession when she'd first become bedridden.

"Miss Prisca keeps her treasures here," Lina said as she reached up to take a wooden jewelry box similar to Dora's down from the top of the wardrobe in Prisca's bedroom.

"Is it locked?" asked Frodo.

"Yes, Mr. Baggins. Always. Miss Prisca keeps the key hidden under her pillow." Lina fetched this now and offered it to him.

Frodo unlocked the box. Inside were a number of the usual little velvet bags in which ladies stored their jewelry. He peeked into each of these to find trinkets of greater and lesser value, though even the finest pieces weren't half so valuable as the string of pearls. None of the bags were empty. As Frodo returned the box to Lina, he asked, "Are you sure this hasn't been opened since Yuletide, Miss- ah-?" Although he'd seen Lina once or twice before when he'd visited Prisca's home, he realized that he'd never heard her last name.

She gave it to him now, "Scarby, Mr. Baggins. Miss Prisca hasn't asked me to bring down her jewelry since then--that's all I know. But I'm not with her all the time when she has guests. She and Miss Dora sat a long while in the parlor one night last week before she called me in to help her to bed. I couldn't say what they talked about, nor if Miss Dora didn't come out to fetch the box in here. I was in my own room all the time."

"You're not suggesting my Aunt Dora…?"

"Oh no, Mr. Baggins. That's only an example. I might just as easily have said Mrs. Whitfoot, since she was here last night, or Mrs. Burrows, who comes to call regular. Lots of visitors might've done the same. Lots of folk would like to get their hands on those pearls of Miss Prisca's."

When Frodo returned to the party, tea was still being served, but most of the guests had had their fill. Many remained around the tables, talking excitedly in low voices, but they'd given up hope of finding more pearls; besides, the owner of the pearls would only claim them if they did. Prisca and Dora were sitting near each other under the shade of the tented trees nearest the Old Place, with various nieces and nephews in attendance, but didn't seem to be talking. The children had gone back to their games and the musicians were preparing to resume their playing, but Pippin hadn't joined either group. He was smoking a pipe with his granduncle Falco Chubb-Baggins in the little side-yard of the house where Milo Burrows and male guests of Dora's traditionally smoked.

"Hoy, Frodo!" Pippin called out and waved his pipe once he spotted his cousin. "So Aunt Prisca's asked you to look into this?"

"Yes, that's right," Frodo answered as he came closer. "It seems that I can't go anywhere without stumbling over some mystery that needs solving, even in the middle of tea-time."

"Then you ought to hear this," Pippin now spoke in a lower voice. "Uncle Falco's been telling me that Aunt Prisca and Aunt Dora have been quarreling over more than pearls for ages."

The old hobbit nodded. "Have you heard of Wilibard Bolger, Frodo? Young Pippin here hadn't."

"I think so…" Frodo answered as he sat down. "Aunt Dora used to speak of him sometimes. Wasn't he an old sweetheart of hers?"

Falco slapped his knee and laughed. "Is that how she tells it? No, Frodo-lad. Wilibard was a cousin to my own dear Posey. He came to visit from Budgeford not long after Posey and I were wed, and of course I introduced him to my cousins here in Hobbiton. Sad to think that so many of them are gone now! Old Bilbo, Otho, Posco… Odo Proudfoot over there was just a lad in his tweens in those days, and Dora and Prisca were young girls. Prisca was the prettier--at least, Wilibard thought so. They were both sweet on him, but it was Prisca he chose in the end."

"But they didn't marry," said Frodo.

"No, lad. He died soon after he and Prisca were betrothed."

"Maybe Aunt Dora killed him," Pippin joked.

But Frodo was thinking of something else: the little gold clasp Prisca had identified from her broken necklace. He'd seen the initials engraved on it: PB & WB. "Wilibard gave her those pearls, didn't he, Uncle? They were a betrothal gift."

"That's right," Falco confirmed.

Pippin shot a significant glance at Frodo. Apparently, Dora's envy of her cousin's pearls wasn't entirely because of the pearls themselves. A deeper jealousy lay behind it. "Where did he get them from?" Frodo wondered.

"Wiliford's mother was a Took," said Falco, as if that were explanation enough. Then, after a moment, he added for the benefit of the ignorant young folk, "Back in the old days, when the Old Took was alive and a friend to that wizard-friend of yours, he had all sorts of strange and remarkable treasures brought back from goodness-knows-where and the family must have some of them still. The Took girls--the Old Took's daughters, I mean, and not your sisters, Pip-lad--each had a string of pearls, and wasn't the second daughter Wilibard's own mother?"

"My eldest sister has one," said Pippin. "They belonged to Great-Aunt Belladonna. Father set them aside specially for Pearl when she came of age. Pearls for my Pearl, he used to say."

"And your mother or Milo's ought to have the third string, Frodo," said Falco. "They were the youngest Took girl's daughters. She must have left them to one or the other."

Frodo couldn't recall ever seeing his Aunt Asphodel wearing pearls, even though she was the sort of grand hobbit-lady who certainly would if she had them. Had she had sold them years ago to pay her husband's debts? Or had they gone to his mother, and she had set them aside with other treasures for him, like Dora, intended for a bride who would never exist? He would have to make inquiries when he and Sam visited Buckland later this summer.

"So, what d'you think, Frodo?" Pippin asked him. "Could it've been-?

Taking Pippin by the arm, Frodo led his cousin a little away from their aged granduncle. "I think," he said rather tersely, "that the oddest thing about all of this isn't that the pearls were stolen, but where they were found. It's almost like one of your conjuring tricks. Tell me, Pip--how would you get a pearl necklace into a cherry pie?"

"I wouldn't," replied Pippin. "Not if I meant to steal it. It's a silly thing to do." He gave the question some practical thought. "Unless I meant to give it to someone else. But who'd steal a necklace to give to a party-full of hobbits? How could they be sure it'd go to the right people? It's dotty." At these last words, he looked apologetic. "I'm sorry, Frodo, but it's something only a dotty person would do."

Frodo brushed aside the apology. Pippin was right; as a plan for a theft, it was impractical. Even if the string hadn't broken, there was no way a thief could be sure that any part of the pie and the necklace concealed within it was received by one particular person in such a crowd. Was the pie containing the necklace therefore not meant for Aunt Dora's party? Perhaps it had only come here by accident. Or had the pearls gotten into the pie by accident?

As much as he disliked the nurse's insinuations, Frodo had to concede that she had a point about Prisca's visitors and their motivations. He couldn't ignore the most obvious possibility.

Angelica had left the shelter of the tent and was heading toward them. She'd been indignant when Frodo had last seen her, and her face was pink with it now. Frodo left Pippin and went to meet her at the edge of the meadow. "Frodo, isn't it awful?" she said. "Everyone thinks Aunt Dora stole those pearls from Aunt Prisca."

"Yes, I know." Even if Frodo had wanted to disregard Lina Scarby's insinuations, Uncle Falco's hints and Pippin's talk of "dotty" behavior were impossible to ignore. And, recalling the embarrassed looks that had gone between Peony and her brothers, he realized that they weren't the only ones to have such ideas.

"Even Aunt Prisca thinks so, though she doesn't quite say it," Angelica continued. "I can hear it in every word she speaks to poor Auntie Dora."

"Does Auntie know what they're thinking?"

His cousin gave a fierce shake of her ringlets. "No. No one's said anything directly to her. Everyone's whispering behind her back. Papa and Uncle Porto keep asking how the pearls could've ended up in such an odd place, and casting glances at Aunt Dora as if they expect her to answer. And at her own party too! Oh, this is beastly! You have to do something about it."

"I mean to," Frodo assured her. He didn't like the idea of his dear, slightly dotty aunt being suspected any more than Angelica did, but this wasn't the first time he'd suspected a relative of committing a crime. He saw that Dora might easily have taken the pearls while visiting her cousin last week. She was a lady of sound moral character, but had always had her moments of pettiness. Since she'd been growing somewhat scatter-brained lately, she might've had some sort of lapse when faced with an opportunity to take something she'd desired for so long, something that was connected with the old rivalry between her and Prisca. Yes, that was possible.

He also saw that if it wasn't Aunt Dora, there were two other strong prospects, neither more pleasant to him, that must be considered. Angelica seemed quite certain that Dora couldn't be the thief. Was it simply because she was protective of their elderly aunt, or did she have a better reason? "Angelica, if you wish to help me, you must tell me the truth. You didn't take the pearls from Aunt Prisca's when you called on her last night, did you?"

Instead of being offended, Angelica laughed at the question. "No, of course not! What sort of fool do you take me for, Frodo Baggins? It'd be a foolish for me to steal them when I've every chance of receiving them honestly when Aunt Prisca passes on."

"I wouldn't blame you if you felt they were almost yours already," Frodo answered. "All the family seems to expect that she'll leave them to you rather than to Peony. But Aunt Dora has no chance of receiving them, and she's wanted them for so much longer. You know she's envied Prisca them since they were both girls, and I know how fond you are of Aunt Dora." He gave her a serious look. "You didn't, shall we say, 'borrow' the pearls to let Aunt Dora have them as a sort of birthday surprise? A sort of joke? Aunt Prisca would forgive you for it, as she'd forgive no one else."

Angelica didn't laugh this time. "It's a good idea," she admitted, "but one that didn't occur to me. I rather wish it had. It would've made Aunt Dora happy, just for today even if we had to give them back to Aunt Prisca afterwards." She met her cousin's eyes suddenly with eyes that were as intense and as blue. "And if you're asking me to confess to spare Auntie this humiliation, Frodo, I'd be glad to say it was me even though it wasn't. But who would believe it? Honestly, if I were going to borrow Aunt Prisca's pearl necklace, why on Middle-earth would I hide it in a pie?"

"I don't believe that was the original intention," Frodo said. "I think they ended up there purely by mishap."

"Then it couldn't have been me, Frodo," his cousin responded. "You said yourself that the necklace had been baked in the pie, and that pie must've been baked yesterday afternoon, since all the pies and other treats came here to be set out on the tables this morning. Lad and I only rode down from Michel Delving with the children yesterday afternoon. There was no baking in Aunt Dora's kitchen after we arrived, so the pearls were long gone from Aunt Prisca's by the time I called on her last night."

Frodo saw the unquestionable logic of this. It couldn't be Angelica then. That left Dora and her lapse, or Peony, who had a traditional right to inherit her aunt's pearls, but little hope of actually receiving them. Since she frequently called on Prisca alone or with her sisters-in-law, Peony had also had plenty of opportunities to take whatever she liked from Prisca's jewelry-box. But Peony wasn't in the least absent-minded; Frodo could plausibly believe her a thief, but not a foolish one. She could have no conceivable reason for concealing the necklace in a pie. No one could have a reason for doing such a strange thing deliberately.

How then had the pearls ended up in the pie? As he'd told Angelica, it must have been a mishap. Reluctantly, Frodo considered his aunt again. He imagined Dora bringing the pearls home from Prisca's and wearing them secretly under her blouse. If she seemed unusually excited or happy, which indeed she had been lately, it would be attributed to her upcoming birthday party. And then what had happened? An accident in the kitchen while she was overseeing the baking of party treats? The string had broken and the pearls had fallen into the cherries? Could such a thing have occurred unnoticed?

Frodo sought out his aunt's cook, who'd been given the day off after her hard work in preparing for this party, but who was among the guests. But when he tried to ask her when the cherry pies had been made, and if his aunt had been present at their baking, he received an astonishing answer, "Bless you, Mr. Frodo, I never made a cherry pie in my kitchen yet this summer!"

"Then where did those pies come from?"

"I couldn't say right off, Mr. Frodo--there was ever-so many folk hereabouts giving a hand to the cookery. But Mrs. Peony had a list of who was a-bringing what to us today. She'd know."

By dusk, many of the party-guests had had their fill of treats and were headed home for dinner. The musicians were eating their supper under the shelter before they too went home. Peony had taken the twins into the house for a nap. After a final word with Frodo about the state of his investigation, Aunt Prisca had been carried away in her chair. Aunt Dora had gone indoors. While everyone said that they'd had a splendid time, she couldn't help feeling as if a pall had been cast over her party and she wasn't certain why. The discovery of the pearls should have made her birthday a most exciting and memorable occasion.

Sam was still sitting at his table. Frodo felt sorry that he hadn't spent more of the day with his friend. As far as he'd observed, Sam had barely moved from the spot since they'd arrived.

"How are you, my dear?" Frodo asked as he approached the table. "You're not sorry you came, are you?"

Sam shook his head, but he smiled as Frodo sat down beside him. "I didn't expect to have lots o' fun, but I'm glad to see the little uns playing. They're having a good time." A bonfire had been built at the far end of the meadow to burn rubbish. Pippin and Sancho Proudfoot were entertaining the remaining children by tossing firecrackers into the fire to make loud and colorful explosions. "The way they've been running 'round today, they'll fall right to sleep as soon as we get `em home." Sam looked a little weary himself; when Frodo extended a hand to the side of his head, he rested his cheek against it and shut his eyes. "What about you? You enjoying yourself hunting after pies, Frodo?"

"Yes, I am--although this wasn't how I'd intended to spend my afternoon! But I've managed to clear three of my dearest female relations of the suspicion of thievery, so my time was well spent."

Sam looked interested. "Did you? I've been hearing some odd talk about Miss Dora since those pearls was found."

"I've learned that that pie wasn't baked here at the Old Place. Neither Aunt Dora, nor Peony, nor Angelica could've been near it before it went into the oven--and the pearls were surely inside it then. I told Aunt Prisca so before she went home, but she still wants to know who took her pearls. I hope to have the answer for her tomorrow." With his free hand, he brought a folded scrap of paper out of his breast pocket and held it up, although it was now too dark for Sam to see what was written on it. "The cherry pies were baked in a dozen kitchens here in Hobbiton and in Overhill, but no one seems to know which ones came from where. The empty pie pans all look alike. I've had a talk with Peony and some of the other Bagginses who were involved in the party preparations. Peony's given me a list of everyone who brought treats today, and what they brought. Tomorrow I shall go around and speak to the cooks. I've guessed that that pie wasn't meant for the party, Sam. Pippin said it was ridiculous for anyone to give a pie full of pearls to a party-full of hobbits, and he was quite right. And the thief couldn't expect that pie to be received by any particular person here today if he meant to pass it on. That's just as absurd. No, I do believe it came here by mistake." As he tucked the list back into his pocket, Frodo considered a new idea. "Sam, how do you make a cherry pie?"

Sam laughed at the question and raised his head from the support of Frodo's hand. "You thinking of baking one yourself, Frodo?"

"You know I know nothing about baking. But you do know, don't you?"

"'Course I do." Sam sat upright. "Well, there's two ways. Simple, you pit your cherries and pop 'em into the pie shell with a bit o' butter, then put some more crust atop and bake it in the oven. Fancier, you cut up your cherries and let 'em stew in a pot atop the stove with some sugar and maybe a drop or two of sweet wine, as if you were making jam, before you put `em in the pie."

"Which did we have today?" Frodo cast his memory back to the slice of pie on his plate when all the excitement had begun. "Fancy."

"That's right."

"And the one with the pearls in it was just the same?"

"Now, I didn't have a piece o' that, but it looked to be the same. It was just as much of a mess on the little lads' shirts. Pippin'll know." The last of the fireworks had gone off, and Pippin was leading the children in a ring around the dying fire.

"So you make the stewed cherries beforehand?" asked Frodo.

"It's best to," Sam answered. "If you're going to make your pie right away, you let the filling cool and sit `til it gels, so it don't make the bottom crust too soggy. Most folks stew a lot o' cherries when they're ripe and preserve `em for later. That's how you can have cherry pie in the winter. But old folks like Miss Dora like their pies sweet and mushy even when fresh cherries're at hand."

It seemed unlikely that a thief would try to hide the pearls in this mixture, but Frodo felt as if he'd gone a step farther in his investigation. The necklace couldn't have been concealed in fresh cherries; it would have been discovered by the kitchen staff while they were washing, pitting, and cutting. Could it have been hidden in the sugar? Yes, that was more likely. If the other kitchens in Hobbiton and Overhill were like his own, then they kept a store of sugar in a large ceramic bin in the pantry, which might last for months before it needed to be refilled. A thief might think that a reasonable place to hide stolen jewelry. If that thief were here today, he or she must have been just as amazed as everyone else when the pearls began to turn up. The next step was to discover whose kitchen that pie had come from, and what connection its residents had to Aunt Prisca.

Pippin returned for his banjolele, which he'd left in Sam's care. As he picked it up, he strummed a few jaunty chords and waggled his eyebrows at Frodo. "Time for one last dance?"

Frodo laughed. "Oh, very well!" He rose and turned to his partner with a little bow. "Sam, would you please honor me with a dance before we gather up the children and go home?" Before he received a reply, he took Sam by both hands to draw him to his feet. They headed toward the shadows at the edge of the bonfire, still hand in hand, spinning in a circle. Pippin followed, skipping to the tune he was playing. While the older children, Peony's sons and Sancho, were still busy playing with the fire, the little ones came to dance with them. Willa and Elanor bounced merrily around together, and when little Frodo fell on his bottom on the grass, Sam quickly scooped up his son with one arm and 'danced' with him as well.

The next morning, Frodo paid a series of calls on his neighbors' kitchens, bringing Peony's list in his pocket and bearing a basket laden with pie pans. Eight had been taken home by their owners last night, leaving twelve unclaimed at the end of the party. Ostensibly, Frodo's errand was to return these remaining pans to their proper owners, but he had marked the one that the pearls had been found in. The pans were otherwise identical sturdy, oven-proof disks of a dark brown color. The Bywater pottery must sell dozen like them every year.

Frodo immediately eliminated five when he called at his cousins' homes in Overhill. He went there first with the idea that Ponto's and Porto's wives, Golda and Gilliflora respectively, were frequent callers at Prisca's smial and had some natural interest in the pearls. As Bagginses-by-marriage, neither lady was likely to receive such a valuable piece of jewelry from their husbands' aunt, but Golda's daughter Angelica very probably would. Either lady might reason that since all they both possessed would go to Angelica one day anyway, they might take the pearls now and keep them for awhile before passing them on to the rightful heir.

"My goodness!" cried Golda when Frodo arrived, half-dragging the heavy basket. "I forgot about our own pies in all the excitement yesterday. Gilly and I meant to bring those home with us last night. Take them into the kitchen, please, right away."

"It's kind of you to bring them, Frodo," added Gilliflora, who was also in her sister-in-laws' sitting room with her husband; their two smials sat next to each other within the same hill and had twin, round red front doors. The foursome were in and out of each other's houses all day. "Imagine Dora sending you all around Overhill on such an errand. Everyone knows you haven't been well in ages."

"I imagine poor Aunt Dora's more worried about pies baked in her own kitchen than in anybody else's," said Ponto.

"You're still convinced Aunt Dora is behind this?" Frodo asked, and set the heavy basket down on the sitting-room floor.

"Well, if she isn't, then it was Prisca's doing," Ponto answered. "Now, I'm as fond of both my aunts as you are, young Frodo, but you know how old ladies can be. One or the other is sure to have done something extraordinarily silly to get those pearls baked into a pie. If you're looking into this, that's just what you'll discover in the end. Some silliness."

Ponto remained convinced of this conclusion even when Frodo told him that the pie hadn't been baked at Dora's house nor Prisca's. He had formed his theory on the spot yesterday, and meant to stick to it. The idea of deliberate theft seemed unimiaginable. Gilliflora and Golda wondered where the pie could have come from. They were all aware that Frodo was investigating this strange incident--they had been there when Prisca had engaged him, and assumed that he was naturally interested in protecting Dora--but they didn't seem to perceive that he was actively seeking the source of the pie in their own kitchen.

When Frodo left them to take his basket into the kitchen, the cook that both households shared identified her five pie-pans, thus removing her employers from a suspicion none of them were aware they'd been under. The cook had made a small mark of her own on all her pans before she'd sent the pies to the Old Place yesterday morning, "to be sure I got 'em back." None was the one Frodo had marked.

The cook was also kind enough to show Frodo where she kept her store of sugar, although she seemed bewildered as to why he wanted to see it, and answered his questions about how she'd made the pie filling. She had pitted and cut up the cherries herself the day before the party, then left them to stew for most of the afternoon in a huge pot over the kitchen fire. She'd made all five pies at once by ladling the cooled filling into the pie-shells.

As she demonstrated this procedure, Frodo realized that the pearls had all been found in one pie. If they'd been hidden in a sugar bin and gone into a pot with the cherries, the string had most probably broken while the contents of the pot were cooking and being slowly stirred over a fire. If the filling had then been ladled out, the loose pearls would have been distributed through more than one pie-shell if more than one was available; therefore, the pie containing the pearls was the only one cooked in that particular kitchen.

After he left his cousins' homes with his burden lightened, Frodo consulted his list to see who had brought only one pie to the birthday party. There were three singles, from Danilora Chubb, Gretna Grubb, and a Mrs. Lumbly. This left him with a mathematical puzzle, since he still had seven pie-pans in his basket when there should be eight. He took them out of the basket to count them, and looked over the list again. According to Peony's account, there should have been one-and-twenty cherry pies served yesterday, not twenty. Someone else had brought only one pie when they were meant to bring two. This might be the key to it all, or else a mistake in Peony's addition and nothing to do with the pearls. When he saw that another Chubb relation in Hobbiton was meant to bring three pies, and Prunella Proudfoot and Lila Muscote two each, Frodo decided to that his best course was to begin with the three who had contributed one pie alone, since all were nearer. He would then hunt out the others in turn until he'd solved this puzzle. Prunella Proudfoot, on the far side of the Hill, he would visit last.

Mrs. Lumbly, who was nearest to the twin Baggins smials, was an elderly widow and friend of Dora's whom Frodo had seen occasionally in his aunt's parlor. He had not, however, seen her at the party.

"I meant to go, of course," Mrs. Lumbly explained as she welcomed Frodo into her home, "but I had a terrible headache yesterday morning that wouldn't go away. I sent Dora a note of regret along with the pie I promised to bring for her. I'm sorry I missed her birthday. I heard there was some excitement over Prisca Baggins's pearls." The old lady chuckled. "Now, I wish I'd been able to see that! Was your aunt Prisca there?"

Frodo confirmed that she was, and asked Mrs. Lumbly if she and Prisca were friends.

"No, I never could abide her," she answered. "She may be your aunt, Frodo, but I have to tell you that Prisca Baggins was an awful bully even as a girl, and she's only grown worse with age. I've avoided her since she's became an invalid. You can't argue with a bedridden woman, even if she deserves taking down a peg or two!"

"Did you bake the pie yourself?" Frodo asked.

"Oh, no. Mrs. Crump, my cook, did. She took it over to Dora's when she delivered my note "

Frodo then took the pie-pans into the kitchen and, while Mrs. Crump picked out one from the basket, asked her a few questions. She'd only gone to Miss Dora's to leave off Mrs. Lumbly's note, her cherry pie and some scones. She hadn't stayed for the party and was long gone by the time the "rumpus" had started. She didn't know a thing about it. She'd been to Miss Dora's once or twice before, since she was on friendly terms with Miss Dora's cook and personal maid, but she couldn't recollect that she'd ever been to Miss Prisca Baggins' smial.

Frodo called at other houses, leaving a pie-pan or two at each and questioning the ladies and their cooks as discreetly as he could. Had any them called on Prisca or her servants lately? Had anyone from Prisca's household visited them? He then went to see his Aunt Prisca to confirm what he'd been told and to find out who besides Dora, Angelica, Peony, Golda, and Gilliflora had called upon her in the last few weeks.

"It's good of you to remove all shadow of suspicion from our closest relatives first, Frodo," Prisca said when she received him in her sitting room and heard this request. "You aren't a fool, my boy. Not as much of as some of your cousins! I'm pleased you have a sense of family loyalty, but I hope you don't allow sentiment to mislead your common sense."

"I don't, Auntie," Frodo responded. "I never have during one of my previous investigations, and I wouldn't now even if I learned that your thief was my Aunt Dora or one of my cousins--although I'd try to settle things within the family rather than create a public scandal. But I have cleared them. The pie where your pearls were hidden wasn't baked in any of their kitchens. That's certain. Confess now, you did think it was Aunt Dora, didn't you?"

"It seemed only reasonable," Prisca admitted. "I've known Dora so much longer than you have, Frodo. From the cradle, you might say. You see her as she is now, a sweet and somewhat fussy old lady, without the benefit of my longer acquaintance. We've always been rivals over one thing or another. Jealous of whatever the other has. Oh, I'm no better than her in that respect! Dora's never forgotten how those pearls came into my possession, or who gave them me. Do you know that old story, Frodo?" Frodo nodded. "Then I won't repeat it."

"How strong is your sense of family loyalty, Aunt?" he asked her. "People were talking quite a lot about Aunt Dora yesterday, and I'm sure we'd both like to see that stopped as soon as possible." Even if she hadn't openly accused Dora, many people at the party had taken their cue from Prisca and her behavior toward Dora. Frodo wanted her help now in taking the lead again. It wasn't enough that he declare Dora innocent; Prisca must also demonstrate to these same people that she no longer suspected her cousin, even though the true thief hadn't yet been caught. He wouldn't see Dora harmed by ugly and unfounded gossip.

Prisca laughed. "Very well, Frodo! I'll do what I can to put a stop to the talk. But if it wasn't Dora, who was it?"

Frodo gave her the names of the women he'd visited that morning, and Prisca considered them each in turn. All the ladies on his list had called on Prisca at least once recently, with one exception.

"Glovina Lumbly?" Prisca shook her head. "No, I haven't seen her, not since her husband's funeral--and that was years ago. I was still able to go about on my own two legs then. I don't know her cook, of course, but all the cooks and servants hereabouts have their own social circles. Lina!" she yelped so sharply and suddenly that Frodo nearly jumped from his seat, startled.

The nurse was not far away; she appeared almost immediately at the sitting-room door in response to Prisca's abrupt summons. "Yes, Miss Prisca?"

"Lina, you don't know a- What was that name again, Frodo?"

"Crump," Frodo supplied.

"Crump," the elderly lady repeated.

"No, Miss Prisca."

"Then take Frodo here into the kitchen, so he can ask them the same question."

"By the time I got to the Proudfoots, I only had the marked pie-pan left," Frodo told Sam after he'd returned to Bag End with his basket empty and his arms aching. Sam had taken him into the kitchen. He'd missed luncheon and the maidservant was washing up, but Mrs. Parmiggen, the cook Frodo had engaged after Rosie's death, warmed up some leftover soup for him. They sat at the kitchen table and Sam made sure Frodo ate while he reported on his morning's work.

"What'd you do with it in the end?" Sam asked him.

"I gave it to Aunt Pru, although I'm sure the pearls were never near her kitchen. I'm rather sorry I left her for last, even if the Proudfoots are on the southern side of the Hill and so far from everyone else. If I'd gone there earlier, I wouldn't have wondered if the missing pie on Peony's list was important."

"And it wasn't?"

"Not in the least! It was Aunt Pru all along, you see. She'd promised to bring two pies to the party--baked two, as a matter of fact, but Sancho managed to eat most of one in the night, so she let him finish it off for breakfast before they went over to Aunt Dora's."

"I should've known that that Sancho'd be in it somewhere. But it must've been one of the others you talked to before her," Sam concluded. "One of them that brought just the one pie."

"That's right. I didn't find out much when I spoke to Mrs. Chubb. She's a dear friend of Aunt Prisca's, but when I spoke to her, she was more interested in telling me all about her son Dandy now he's home from his honeymoon. Mrs. Grubb is also a friend. Both of them have been to Aunt Prisca's several times in the last few weeks." Frodo dipped a piece of bread into his soup and popped it into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully for a moment before he said, "Then there's Mrs. Lumbly. She's the most interesting of the three, Sam. She's no friend of Aunt Prisca's. From the way she laughed when she spoke of where those pearls turned up, I'd say she feels my aunt received her just deserts. I might easily believe she'd stolen the pearls if I could only figure out how she managed to do it. Aunt Prisca says she hasn't seen Mrs. Lumbly in years. Mrs. Lumbly never calls on her, and she couldn't have stolen into the house while Aunt Prisca was out. Aunt Prisca is never out. Yesterday's party was the first time she'd been farther than her own garden since last autumn, and the pearls were surely in the jewelry box then."

"What about this Mrs. Lumbly's cook? She has one, doesn't she?"

"I've asked about her too. Aunt Prisca says she's never heard of Mrs. Crump."

Mrs. Parmiggen laughed. She'd been quietly straightening up the kitchen until now, and Frodo had barely been aware that she and the maidservant were there. He'd given all the servants yesterday off and they hadn't gone to Dora's party, but they had all heard what had happened there.

He quickly turned to look up at her. "What is it, Mrs. Parmiggen?"

"Miss Baggins mightn't know Mrs. Crump," she told him, "but she's heard of her."

It took Frodo a moment to understand this. "You mean, Mrs. Crump has heard of my aunt?" The remark still made little sense; Mrs. Crump had said she'd heard about the "rumpus" at Dora's party and must know whose pearls were involved. At the very least, she'd heard his aunt's name from him.

But the cook answered, "That's right, Mr. Frodo. Miss Baggins might never've set eyes on her, but that don't mean them as works in her house can say the same."

Frodo recalled what Prisca had said about the cooks around Hobbiton all knowing each other. He knew for himself that it was true. When he'd asked Peony for help in engaging reliable servants, she'd asked Dora's cook and maid, and they had recommended friends or relatives. Mrs. Parmiggen was a distant cousin of Dora's cook who had left her present position in Frogmorton to come and work for him. Hazel, the maid, was their niece. They were both probably acquainted with the servants at his Aunt Prisca's as well as in Mrs. Lumbly's house. Mrs. Parmiggen seemed to be. She was certainly hinting at some connection between the two households, although he wasn't yet certain what she was referring to.

"As a matter of fact," he said, "my aunt Prisca's cook and maidservants claim that they don't know Mrs. Crump. Are you saying that they've lied, Mrs. Parmiggen?"

"Oh, not them. I don't know `em myself, as they've come from off Waymoot-way. But you can be sure Rina Crump's heard a thing or two about Miss Baggins from her sister as works there, and contrary-wise. If she told you otherwise, Mr. Frodo, then she's told a lie--and so has that sister o' hers."

"Her sister-?" At last, Frodo understood who Mrs. Parmiggen was referring to. There was only one other person in Prisca's house. He also saw quite clearly how the pearls had gotten from Prisca's jewelry box to Dora's party.

The difficulty was catching Lina Scarby alone. Frodo thought it best to confront her first out of his aunt's presence, to be absolutely sure of his culprit, but he didn't see how he could manage it.

He'd been standing beneath a grove of shady trees below the little hill in which Prisca's smial was burrowed for a quarter of an hour, considering the problem, when the front door opened and Lina emerged. She hurried swiftly along the lane and didn't see him until she was passing the trees, when Frodo stepped out to detain her. "Miss Scarby?"

She stopped and whirled to find him standing beside her. "Oh, Mr. Baggins!" One hand went to her chest. "How you startled me! Are you going to see your aunt?"

"Yes, eventually," he answered. "But first, I thought I might walk with you for awhile. There are some things I want to say." When she went a few steps farther along the lane, he followed her to show that he intended to accompany her. "Where are we going, by the way?"

"I'm on an errand for Miss Prisca," Lina replied, and stopped walking to face him. "She asked me to take those pearls of hers to the jeweler in Bywater so they can be restrung."

"Then it's all the more important you don't undertake such an errand alone. May I see them, please?" Frodo could exercise the authority of a gentlehobbit when he had to; he spoke in no-nonsense tones and fixed his eyes on hers as he extended one hand. Lina hesitated and her face lost some of its color, even though there was little to begin with. For a moment, he thought she was going to refuse or even turn and try to run, then she took a small velvet bag from her skirt pocket and surrendered it to him.

Frodo opened the bag and poured its contents into the palm of his other hand. He counted the pearls to be sure they were all there, as well as the gold clasp, before he returned them to the bag and tucked it into his waistcoat's inner breast pocket. "I'll take charge of these, if you don't mind, Miss Scarby. After that last incident, I want to be quite certain that nothing else happens to them. I'll see that they get to the jeweler's safely, and back to my aunt again."

Lina's eyes had widened when he'd pocketed the pearls, but she said nothing. Frodo felt sure now that he was right; an innocent woman would have ruffled at the suggestion that she couldn't be relied on to carry out such a task by herself.

He pressed on, "I feel rather responsible for these pearls, you see. My Aunt Prisca engaged me to investigate their theft. I do know who took them. I know how they came to be in that pie at my Aunt Dora's, and I know who baked it. There's very little about this whole peculiar business that I don't know now."

"I don't understand what you're talking about, Mr. Baggins," she answered, meeting his eyes levelly.

"Don't you? You tried to cast suspicion on other people, my Aunt Dora and my cousins, but the truth of the matter is that you had the best opportunities of anyone to steal from Aunt Prisca. You know where she keeps her jewelry box, and where she keeps the key. It would only take a moment to open it whenever she isn't in her bedroom and take whatever you like from it, whenever you liked--although I guess that it wasn't very long ago. You put the pearls in your pocket and when you had a little time free, dashed over to see your sister at Mrs. Lumbly's to hide the pearls in the sugar bin. You thought they'd be safe there until you could find a better hiding place. The important thing was to get them out of the house right away, isn't that so? If my aunt noticed her pearls were missing, you and your belongings could be searched without fear. But you didn't count on your sister using so much sugar so soon. Stewing cherries for pie, I am told on good authority, requires a great deal of sugar."

He waited for her response to this accusation. When it came at last, it surprised him. "Do you know what it's like to be at the constant beck and call of a bad-tempered, invalid old lady?" she hissed.

"No," he admitted, "but I imagine it can't be very pleasant." He thought of the things his friend Thimula had told him about nursing her aunt Lobelia through the final months of life. He also recalled the sharp, barking tone Prisca always used to summon Lina, and he could understand how even a placid-tempered nurse's patience could wear thin after hearing that day after day. "You have my sympathies, Miss Scarby, but all the same, it doesn't excuse thieving. You might've left her employ at any time if you were unhappy. You'll have to leave now regardless."

"Then you'll tell her?" asked Lina.

"Yes, certainly. She'll want very much to know. But since the pearls have been restored to my aunt and I suspect she'd rather not bring the shirriffs into this, I'll give you the chance to go and pack your things before I explain it all to her. I think you'd better be out of her house before the pearls return to it." Since he did have some sympathy for her, he asked, "Do you have somewhere to go tonight? Will your sister, Mrs. Crump, give you a bed?"

Lina nodded.

"May I ask--Did your sister know you'd hidden the pearls in her kitchen at Mrs. Lumbly's? Did Mrs. Lumbly know?" Frodo doubted that the two were involved. Mrs. Crump would've been more careful with her sugar if she'd be aware of what was buried in it. The most he could say against her was that she'd concealed the fact that her sister was working in Aunt Prisca's household. And as much as it might tickle Mrs. Lumbly's sense of humor to see Prisca's pearls taken from her, Frodo didn't believe she would risk the theft of so valuable a piece of jewelry merely for a prank. But he had to be sure.

"My sister knew nothing about it," Lina insisted. "I won't have her disgraced and lose her place over this too. Just let me go, Mr. Baggins."

"As you wish." Frodo gave her a little bow and gestured toward his aunt's smial to indicate that she should go and pack her bags now.

She understood. "Thank you, Mr. Baggins. You've been more kind than I deserve."

Frodo thought that he detected a note of sarcasm in this last sentence, but Lina had already turned away from him as she went back toward the smial. Frodo watched her head toward the front door and he was about to go the other way to take the pearls to the jeweler--then he reconsidered and decided that he ought to keep an eye on her while she packed. The pearls were safe, but who knew what else might end up departing with her? Aunt Prisca would think him as big as fool as the rest of the Bagginses if he allowed that to happen.

He ran to catch up with her before she went inside.