A Looming Disaster by Kathryn Ramage
Summary: A Frodo Investigates! mystery. Frodo examines a mysterious mishap at a weaving mill.
Categories: FPS, FPS > Frodo/Sam, FPS > Sam/Frodo Characters: Frodo, Sam
Type: None
Warning: None
Challenges: None
Series: Frodo Investigates!
Chapters: 10 Completed: Yes Word count: 15853 Read: 64948 Published: April 16, 2011 Updated: April 16, 2011
Story Notes:
This story takes place in the autumn of 1426 (S.R.)

1. Chapter 1 by Kathryn Ramage

2. Chapter 2 by Kathryn Ramage

3. Chapter 3 by Kathryn Ramage

4. Chapter 4 by Kathryn Ramage

5. Chapter 5 by Kathryn Ramage

6. Chapter 6 by Kathryn Ramage

7. Chapter 7 by Kathryn Ramage

8. Chapter 8 by Kathryn Ramage

9. Chapter 9 by Kathryn Ramage

10. Chapter 10 by Kathryn Ramage

Chapter 1 by Kathryn Ramage
"It's not the sort o' thing you're used to, Mr. Baggins," Mrs. Spindlethrift said apologetically. "We've no murderer for you to catch, nor missing folk to find, and I never had a fine jewel in my life to be stolen. But 'tis a puzzle to us. It's making a mess of our weaving, and that's hard on our business. Now, I hear tell you're that clever at puzzles 'n' such, so I thought as this puzzle o' ours might take your fancy-like, Mr. Baggins, and you might be so kind as to come and help us out."

"I'd be happy to," Frodo replied to his visitor. "But tell me first--what seems to be the trouble?"

He hadn't meant to resume his professional work again so soon after the end of his holiday. He and the Gamgees had returned from Buckland just after his birthday and had been home for barely two weeks. He hadn't officially taken a case since the investigation and capture of the Hobbiton Strangler last spring, and he'd looked forward to having a little more time to rest after that devastating experience. But Mrs. Spindlethrift had come all the way from Oatbarton to consult him, and he couldn't turn her away.

Mrs. Spindlethrift in her eighties, with graying curls and a careworn face, but also with sturdy limbs and a determined eye. Frodo immediately recognized her as a woman who'd seen much hard work in her life, but had prospered. He might find a dozen like her every day in Bywater or any good-sized Shire town, most of them widows who were carrying on their late husbands' businesses or had opened shops of their own. She looked incompletely dressed without an apron, but Frodo knew that such a woman wouldn't have dreamed of wearing it while paying a call on a gentlehobbit.

"It's like this, Mr. Baggins," she explained. "You must've heard how the Spindlethrifts're known for their special weaving, not just the linens and tweeds and such as anybody who's got a loom and quick hands 'n' feet can make, but fancy-work."

Frodo nodded; there were many samples of this "fancy-work" at Bag End among his own clothing.

"Did you never wonder how such fancy stuff is woven, Mr. Baggins?" asked Mrs. Spindlethrift.

"I imagine that it requires a great deal of skill and artistry." While he knew little of the craft of weaving, Frodo knew enough to be aware that the type of work Spindlethrifts was famed for--elaborate patterns woven into the very cloth rather than printed on the fabric--was a long, difficult and painstaking process, and yet the Spindlethrift mill turned out so much more of it and of a higher quality than any other weavers in the Shire. They'd achieved their reputation about fifty years ago, when old Mr. Spindlethrift had invented a fabulous machine that could weave complicated patterns at a greater speed than a weaver could make on an ordinary loom. That much was generally known, but Mr. Spindlethrift's remarkable loom was a closely guarded secret.

"That it does, Mr. Baggins, but mostly it's the cards."

"Cards?"

"That's right. They're the cause o' this trouble." Although they were alone in Bag End's second-best parlor, she lowered her voice. "I must trust on your honor as a gent, Mr. Baggins, not to go repeating what I tell you about these cards. You won't understand our trouble elsewise. I brought some along to show you." Mrs. Spindlethrift reached into the canvas bag she carried with her and extracted a large, flat parcel wrapped in plain white cloth; this, she placed on her lap to unwrap and reveal a short stack of stiff, white paper cards about fifteen inches long and three inches wide, starched to keep the paper from crumpling. Each card was bound loosely to the one beneath it. When Mrs. Spindlethrift set the stack on the table at her elbow, Frodo crossed the room and reached out to lift the top one. The rest came up after it in a sort of chain, for they were fastened together by their longer edges with pieces of waxed, white string. He also noticed that each card had rows of irregularly spaced holes punched in it.

"There, you see 'em," said Mrs. Spindlethrift. "That's the secret o' Spindlethrifts' fancy weaving. 'Twas an invention of my husband's father. Now, he was a hobbit with a mind for machines and wheels and such-like, for he started the mill when he was a lad and made us famous. Before we had these cards, if a weaver wanted to make a fancy pattern, she had to stop at every step and adjust the cross-threads on her loom to make sure the spindle passed over 'n' under the right ones and have the proper colors show in the proper places. That was how I learnt my trade as girl. It'd take me days to make a length of paisley cloth! Now, we have these here cards--at least, Spindlethrifts' does and it'd be worth a sack o' gold to any other weavers to learn our secret. But I'll tell you, Mr. Baggins, if you'll swear it'll go no further."

Frodo promised.

"Now then," she began, "you hang a string o' cards like this one here off the end o' the loom, where the cross-threads are, and afore you pass the spindle through, you see that these little hooks go through the holes punched in the card there, as you see, and grab the proper threads. Where there isn't a hole, the hooks don't go through. Once you pass the spindle, you go on to the next card and it does the same, only with different holes in the card so the hooks catch on different threads."

"Yes, I see..." Frodo murmured, fascinated by this explanation. The late Mr. Spindlethrift must have been a remarkably clever hobbit to devise such a process.

"It gets the weaving done so much quicker," concluded Mrs. Spindlethrift, "and there aren't hardly any mistakes as long as you keep your cards in the proper order."

"What happened?" Frodo asked her. "Has someone stolen the cards?"

"No, Mr. Baggins. It wouldn't do 'em no good to have the cards 'less they had the right sort of loom to put 'em on. I daresay some of our workers've carried tales over the years, but nobody's figured out how to make the same sort o' loom as Father Spindlethrift did. But somebody's been messing with our cards and putting in wrong 'uns to make a nonsense o' the cloth that's being wove!"

Mrs. Spindlethrift had brought samples of these in her bag as well, and brought them out now for Frodo's inspection. Elaborate floral patterns were spoiled by threads of bright color shooting across plain backgrounds or through the flowers. Plaids were spoiled by the same sort of problem; dashes of blue appeared in what was meant to be a bar of solid red, or lines of green showed amid the yellow.

"It's slowing us down in our work, Mr. Baggins," Mrs. Spindlethrift said as Frodo examined these samples. "When you have the threads go wrong that way, you have to stop and pull the bad bit before you can go on. That makes us fall behind, so we don't get the cloth done and out to the shops as quick as we ought to. Now, even the best weavers can make a mistake now and again, only this isn't the weavers' fault. It's in the cards, as you might say. Somebody's been putting 'em in wrong, and it's got to be deliberate."

"Are you certain there hasn't been some sort of mistake?" asked Frodo.

Mrs. Spindlethrift shook her head with firm conviction. "Maybe that'd happen once, Mr. Baggins, but you see how many pieces've gone wrong just in the last day's work before I set out to come see you--and we had just as many go wrong every day this week. Somebody's put all these wrong cards in. That takes special work, sewing the cards together one after another. Whoever it is, they're doing it to spoil our business. It's got so our weavers are afraid to go on with their work, for they don't know when another wrong un'll turn up. Won't you please come and look into it, Mr. Baggins? I'm stopping at the inn in Bywater tonight and I'll be riding home first thing tomorrow. I'd take it as the greatest favor if you'd come back to Oatbarton with me."

Frodo agreed that he would.
Chapter 2 by Kathryn Ramage
"I can't go so soon as that," Sam said glumly after the visitor had gone and Frodo announced that he must go away in the morning. He'd invited Sam to accompany him, even though Sam hadn't aided him in an investigation since the Strangler had terrorized Hobbiton. Nor had Sam officially resumed his duties as Chief Sherriff; Robin Smallburrows was still acting as deputy in Sam's place. "Can't you ask this Mrs. Spindlethrift to stay on a day or two more?"

"I couldn't, Sam," Frodo answered. "She doesn't like to be away from her family longer than necessary. This act of mischief affects their livelihood, especially the types of patterns Spindlethrifts' are known best for. You know their reputation as weavers as well as I do. Mr. Threadnibble speaks highly of them and recommends their cloth whenever I want something particularly fine or fancy for a new waistcoat. Angelica often praises them, and so does Pippin."

"Pippin?"

"Well, you know how partial he is to paisleys and plaids. Sometimes both at once, I'm afraid. The actual process they use to make their fancy patterns is a great secret. Mrs. Spindlethrift showed me a part of it today, the part that's being tampered with to spoil their weaving. I can't tell you very much about that--I promised I wouldn't reveal their secret to anyone and that must include you, dear Sam. But I can say that if she's right, this tampering is done deliberately, with malicious intent. To delay my investigation would give whoever's doing it more time to spoil more cloth and slow the weavers' work down even more than they already have been. They can't afford that."

Sam knew how fragile business could be for a working family and sympathized, but he had his own family difficulties to consider too. "Go tomorrow, if you have to," he conceded. "I'll follow you later on, but not 'til I find somebody to look after the little uns. Fern oughtn't be left to manage 'em day and night by herself." Fern was the nursery-maid, hired by Frodo to take care of the Gamgee children after their mother's death.

"What about Mrs. Cotton?" asked Frodo. "Can't she come and help?"

"She's still busy helping Marigold." Sam's sister had had a little boy in September. "I might ask 'em both to come stay up here while we're gone, but they've got enough to do, looking after Marigold's little uns, never mind mine too. Think of it, Frodo. Six children and most of 'em babies!"

Frodo agreed that this was too much to ask. "Why don't I ask Peony if she'd mind taking the twins?" he offered his cousin's services instead. "You know how she and Aunt Dora dote on them. I could send her a note tonight before I leave. Mrs. Parmiggen and Hazel will be here during the day to give Fern a hand if she needs it, and she can surely look after Elanor and Little Frodo during the evenings. Elanor can almost look after herself now, and help Fern with her little brother." He gave his friend an appealing look. "Please do come if you can manage it, Sam. It'd be wonderful if we could get away for a little holiday."

"But we've just had a holiday! We've been away for weeks, and only just got home again!" Sam responded with some surprise. "I hardly feel settled in."

"The children were with us most of the time in Buckland. We only had a few nights to ourselves and I wouldn't mind more time alone with you. We used to enjoy stopping at inns during our investigations. Remember? And Oatbarton has such a cozy little inn beside the mill stream." Frodo took Sam by the arm. "Can you bear to be away from them for a few days?" he asked gently.

As much as he would welcome Sam's company on this investigation, he didn't want his friend to feel anxious about being separated from the children. Frodo recalled how Sam had barely been able to let them out of his sight in the days immediately following Rosie's death. He hadn't asked Sam to come to Oatbarton with him simply for the pleasure of having time to themselves at the inn--although that certainly had its appeal. Since their return home, Frodo was determined to do all he could to keep Sam from being haunted by painful memories. Sam had emerged from the worst of his grief during their weeks away in Buckland, but they were now back at the same house where Sam had lived with Rosie for nearly five years, and where Rosie had died. Was it too soon? Another week away might give Sam a little more time to heal. But now it seemed that Sam was more reluctant to be away from his children than he was unhappy being back at Bag End. "You know they'll be in good care, my dear."

"I know," Sam said reluctantly. "Fern'll do her best, even if she isn't their mum. It's not that I'm thinking of, Frodo. The little un's've only just got home too. They need to settle in more'n I do."

"Yes, of course." Sam wasn't afraid to be away from the children, but was trying to restore some stability to their disrupted lives. While Frodo was fond of the little Gamgees, as he was of his numerous nieces and nephews, and he had taken more responsibility for their upbringing these past months, he didn't feel as intensely about them as their father did. They were not the center of his life, as they were Sam's. "You must consider them first. I understand if you want to stay at home with them instead of traveling again so soon."

"No, I'll come if I can," Sam insisted. "I'm ready to go investigating again, Frodo, as long as it doesn't concern anybody being murdered. Only, it might be a day or two."

"Very well," Frodo brought Sam's head down with one hand, and gave him a kiss on the temple. "I'll take a room at the inn beside the stream. Whenever you come, you'll find me there."
Chapter 3 by Kathryn Ramage
The next morning, Frodo accompanied his client to Oatbarton, which lay twenty miles due north of Hobbiton. They arrived at midday, and Frodo immediately took a room at the inn. From the window of his room, he could look down upon the fast-flowing stream which ran out of Bindbole Wood, and the many millwheels that were powered by it.

Frodo had been briefly through the town before, stopping for a single night's rest on his journeys to and from the Long Cleeve, but he always remembered the mills. They were Oatbarton's main reason for existing. The town was within sight of the eaves of Bindbole Wood, and it was the first place to receive the trunks of the trees chopped down there and sent floating out on the stream; the wood was cut up at the sawing-mills and the leavings pulped with rags at the paper-mill. Oats and corn from nearby farms were also sent to Oatbarton by cart to be made into flour at the grinding-mills.

Frodo only stopped at the inn long enough to deposit his baggage and leave a note with the innkeeper, in case Sam should follow him that same day. Then he joined Mrs. Spindlethrift at her place of business, which lay just a short walk down the main road through town.

Along their journey, Mrs. Spindlethrift had told him something of her personal history: She had come to work at the Spindlethrift textile mill when she was still in her tweens, and had been one of the first girls to work on the new looms. Possessing the sure hand and quick foot prized by her profession and not being wary of new ways and machinery, as so many hobbits were, she soon became head of the weaving-women, "and caught the eye of young Master Spindlethrift in the bargain!" After marrying her employer's son, Mrs. Spindlethrift had for a time been less involved in the day-to-day concerns of the family business while she was bearing and bringing up "our girls," but once her daughters had grown up and begun to take an interest in the skills of the trade themselves, Mrs. Spindlethrift had also returned to it. Old Mr. Spindlethrift had passed on more than ten years ago. After her husband's death five years ago, Mrs. Spindlethrift had taken charge of the mill in partnership with her brother-in-law.

The Spindlethrift mill consisted of a cluster of long and low thatched-roofed buildings that reminded Frodo of the guardhouse at Newbury, except that every building had a series of multi-paned windows like greenhouses atop it to give the mill-workers sufficient sunlight throughout the day without allowing casual passers-by to peek in. The mill employed a number of townsfolk. Mrs. Spindlethrift showed him around, and Frodo felt that he learned a great deal about the textile business.

Bales of freshly shorn wool and harvested flax were brought into a central sorting yard, either in carts or in flat-bottomed boats along the stream. At this time of year, explained Mrs. Spindlethrift, there was usually more flax than wool, but today hobbits of both sexes were working on wool. Their first job was to pick over the material to remove any dirt or twigs, then wash it. This was done in the sorting yard in vast tubs, with water drawn from the stream in buckets. On sunny days, the wool was then laid out to dry on a large, tilted table.

Mrs. Spindlethrift then showed him the spinsters' room, where two dozen women of all ages from girls in their tweens to grandmothers sat at spinning-wheels, turning tufts of wool into thread. This work was under the supervision of a woman whom the others called Mistress Spinner. This wasn't her name, as Frodo discovered when they were introduced, but a job title; she was Jemina Spindlethrift, Mrs. Spindlethrifts' eldest daughter. Jemina was a little older than Frodo, and appeared to be as steady and competent a workwoman as her mother, although of a less jolly demeanor. Her hair was pulled tightly back, as all the spinsters wore it, to keep long curls from catching in the wheels as they worked.

"'Tis a delight to meet you, Mr. Baggins," Jemina said. "I never thought you'd come to us so quick as this. I wanted to go after you myself, and leave Mum to manage things here, but she said she should go and explain it all to you." She glanced at her mother. "Mum said that if anybody was to be going around telling our secrets to outsiders, it oughta be her. I expect now she was right to go instead. I couldn't've done better. Mum has told you all, hasn't she, Mr. Baggins, and showed you the loom-cards?"

"Your mother explained the problem very thoroughly," Frodo assured her.

"And have you shown him yet?" Jemina asked her mother.

"Not yet," said Mrs. Spindlethrift. "We're going to the weavers' room next."




When they left Jemina, Mrs. Spindlethrift led Frodo through a door at the far end of the room, through another room where spun thread was dyed a remarkable number of colors in vats and laid out to dry, then into the weaving room. This was the largest work-room in the mill, containing a dozen looms, most of which were currently unoccupied. When the weavers were as busy as the spinsters, Frodo thought, they must make a great deal of noise; right now, however, only two of the machines were making their usual rhythmic clack and clatter as the frames shifted up and down between each passage of the shuttle. A woman of about forty was working at one, and a younger girl sat at the other. When Mrs. Spindlethrift and her guest came in, both weavers ceased their work and the elder rose to greet them.

"Mum! We didn't expect you back so soon," she said as she gave Mrs. Spindlethrift a quick hug. "Is this Mr. Baggins?"

Introductions were made. The elder weaver was Pristina Spindlethrift, who was Mistress Weaver. The younger, who remained seated shyly at her loom, was her sister, Elfina.

"I sent the others home," Pristina explained. "They weren't doing any good work, being too frightened that more o' them troublesome cards'd turn up and spoil whatever they was doing. But Elfy and me've stayed on to do some plain tweeds."

"We don't need cards for tweeds," added Elfina from her seat. She then became immediately abashed and apologetic until her mother assured her that she hadn't spoken out of turn. Mr. Baggins knew all about the loom-cards.

"All the same, I'd like to see how they work and how they go wrong," said Frodo. "Will you show me?" he asked Pristina.

Mrs. Spindlethrift produced a stack of cards from her bag, and Pristina affixed it to the end of one of the looms abandoned by the weavers. There were already a number of colored threads hanging down from spools fixed above the top of the frame; Pristina made sure that the cards were aligned properly so that a series of tiny brass hooks set into a wide but pliant board could pass through the holes and pluck at the threads, then she sat down to work.

As she wove with what seemed to Frodo to be astonishing swiftness, lifting and lowering the frame, sliding the spindle, and directing Elfina to turn from one card to the next, a pattern emerged on a strip of cloth. It was one he had seen before among the faulty samples Mrs. Spindlethrift had brought to him--clusters of red and yellow flowers on an off-white background. Then, before his eyes, the pattern was suddenly spoiled. Streaks of bright red and buttercup appeared across the background where no colors should be.

Pristina stopped. "There, you see how it is, Mr. Baggins. If I were making a proper piece of cloth, I'd have to go back and pull that out."

"Will you go on a little longer, please?" Frodo requested. "I want to make note of which cards are the troublesome ones." He marked the edge of the card currently in use by scratching a corner with his thumbnail, then bid Pristina to continue.

After Pristina had worked through the entire cycle of cards, Frodo determined that there were three "troublesome" ones. He crouched to examine these more closely: on all three cards, the holes always began on the far left-hand end, so that the first hook always engaged its thread. Some rows of holes were very short after this first one, only one or two, but others extended halfway across the card or went nearly from one end to the other, so that almost all the hooks would pass through and engage their threads. No row seemed to go all the way to the right-hand side of the card.

"Do you have any patterns that would use so many crossthreads together?" he asked once he had drawn the three weavers' attention to the placement of the holes.

"Stripes," Elfina responded promptly, then lapsed back into shyness.

"A stripe would go all the way across," said Pristina. "It wouldn't stop short, not the way these look like they do."

"A plaid'd only go part-way like that," their mother added, "but there'd be holes atop or under them, to take another color."

"May I take these cards, to study them more closely?" requested Frodo. "You can remove them from the set, can't you?"

"Yes, o' course," said Mrs. Spindlethrift. "Old cards wear out 'n' need to be replaced all the time. Or else we want to add or take out a part o' the pattern to make it longer or shorter. If we wanted to add a stripe of another color between those bunches of flowers, say." Pristina waved her hand over the unfinished strip of woven cloth to show where a horizontal stripe might be added. "You just have to untie those bits of string."

As he did so, Frodo asked, "Who makes the replacement cards?"

"Uncle Jacco," Elfina piped up.

"My husband's brother, Jacimbo," Mrs. Spindlethrift clarified. "Same as made the first uns, Mr. Baggins. He's been making cards for these here looms since he was a lad. His father taught him how."

Frodo tucked the three extracted cards inside his waistcoat--they were too long to fit into the pocket. "I ought to speak to him next, Mrs. Spindlethrift, if you'll please show me the way."




Jacimbo Spindlethrift's workroom was small compared with the larger spaces where his nieces oversaw the weavers and spinsters. Most of the room was occupied by a single table, which was covered with pieces of the stiff paper the cards were made from. Jacimbo stood bending over a strange mechanical device at the table's center, but at the sight of a stranger accompanying his sister-in-law, he moved swiftly to block Frodo's view before Frodo could do more than glimpse it. His vigilance relaxed only slightly when Mrs. Spindlethrift explained who her visitor was.

"You know I didn't want you bringing no outsiders in, Minna," Jacimbo protested.

"I know you didn't," Mrs. Spindlethrift retorted, "but I went and got 'm, and he here is. I told Mr. Baggins about the cards already and Pristy's shown him how the looms work. There's little more left for him to find out, but since he's asked how you make the cards, you might as well tell 'm yourself to be sure he learns it right."

Brother- and sister-in-law might be partners in this business, but it was immediately obvious to Frodo which one was in charge. With no more than a grumble to indicate his disagreement, Jacimbo demonstrated how "the hole machine" punched the cards. The machine was essentially a wooden box with metal peg-like teeth on the inside of the lid and corresponding holes in the bottom. On the top was a handle that worked as a sort of press. The teeth could be retracted from any space, leaving only the ones Jacimbo wished to use; he then put one or more blank cards into place, taking care to align them, then closed the box's lid and pressed the handle down to punch the holes through thr paper.

"How do you know which teeth to choose?" Frodo asked once Jacimbo had presented him with a finished card.

"I just do," Jacimbo answered bluntly. "Most o' the patterns are ones my old dad made up ages ago, and I do as he taught me. The old cards wear out, and I make new uns just like 'em."

"That's what I wanted to ask you about. How do you replace worn-out cards?"

This information was also given grudgingly. When one of the weavers found a damaged or worn card in the set she was working on, she marked it. Pristina gathered these sets up and sent them to her uncle's workroom at the end of the day. Jacimbo matched the teeth to the pattern of holes in the marked cards, and punched out identical holes in the replacements, which were then tied into the sets of cards where the worn-out ones had been.

"And these odd ones that have been giving your weavers so much trouble--could you have put them into the wrong places by mistake?" Frodo asked him.

"'Twasn't me, Mr. Baggins. It's Mulby that puts replacers in these days," Jacimbo answered, then shouted over his shoulder, "Mulby-lass!"

A plump, dark-haired girl with her curls cut short emerged from an adjacent room so promptly that Frodo suspected she'd been listening at the door. She bobbed him a curtsey, and was introduced as Mulbina, another of Mrs. Spindlethrifts' daughters.

"Mulby's my 'prentice," Jacimbo explained. "I've no sons of my own, so I picked Mulby here of all Minna's girls to teach. She's a good head for such things, for a lass, though she's got a lot yet to learn."

By questioning Mulbina, Frodo learned that her uncle usually left the newly punched cards in a stack on the table beside the machine. She would come in later, when he'd finished his work and she wouldn't disturb him, and put them into place on a one-by-one basis--the first new card on the top of the stack replaced the first marked card in the first set in a pile, and so on. The old cards were then thrown on the fire.

"Could you have made a mistake, and put the cards in the wrong places?" Frodo repeated the question he'd asked Jacimbo.

"I might've, Mr. Baggins." The girl's cheeks turned red, and she cast an apologetic glance at her mother. "But if I did, I couldn't say how! Uncle Jacco left the cards for me same as he always does." She turned anxiously to her uncle.

"That I did," Jacimbo confirmed.

"And I put 'em in the sets, same as I always do, the top un in the place o' the first un marked in the pile that sits here."

"Were all the sets that received the wrong cards done at the same time, Miss Spindlethrift?" Frodo asked her next.

Mulbina shook her head helplessly; she didn't know.

"That one set Pristy weaved a bit of for you was one o' the last ones we sent in here to Jacco for fixing right before the trouble started," Mrs. Spindlethrift spoke up. "It's one o' our most popular patterns, so I notice in particular when it goes in to be fixed, and comes back to the weavers again." She consulted the other samples she had shown Frodo and, as far as she could recall, confirmed that they'd all gone to Jacimbo to have worn-out cards replaced recently.

"Could you tell what part of a pattern a certain card is meant to produce, just by looking at it?" Frodo asked Mulbina.

"No, Mr. Baggins," Mulbina responded with another brisk shake of her head. "I don't know one card from another 'less I'm holding 'em up next to each other. I suppose it'll be different once I learn how to make 'em myself, but I'm not allowed to yet. I watch Uncle Jacco do it sometimes, but he won't let me touch that machine o' his."

"That's right," Jacimbo added. "Mulby hasn't got so far. She don't know enough to start making the cards."

Frodo turned to him. "Your niece can't recognize the patterns by the holes in the cards, Mr. Spindlethrift. Could you?"

"I'd make a fair guess at it, if there was enough holes," Jacimbo replied with a diffident shrug.

"Can you tell me what type of pattern these might be a part of?" Frodo took out the three cards from his waistcoat to show the elder hobbit.

Jacimbo held up one of the cards to the light at the room's one small and round window, peered at it, then handed it back to Frodo. "No, sir," he answered. "That don't look like no pattern. It looks like nonsense to me. If that was punched out on this here machine, it wasn't done by me."
Chapter 4 by Kathryn Ramage
Before he'd gone to see Jacimbo, Frodo had asked Pristina and Elfina to work through several more sets of loom-cards and weave each until they'd discovered the cards that were wrong for the patterns. These, Pristina extracted and gave to Frodo in a stack before he left the mill that afternoon, wrapped up in a piece of cloth. Frodo carried this parcel back to his room at the inn, where he locked it into the drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe before he washed and changed to join the Spindlethrifts for dinner.

The entire family had gathered at Mrs. Spindlethrift's smial in the hills above the mill that evening. Her unmarried daughters lived with her, but her married daughters and brother-in-law did not. There were seven daughters in all, Frodo discovered. The ones he hadn't met when Mrs. Spindlethrift had showed him around the mill were introduced before they sat down at their mother's table. After Jemina, the eldest, were Carina and Dosina. These two sisters were married to two brothers named Nutley who went by the title of Master Dyers. They had five small children between them, all of whom were present that evening, but Frodo was never certain which children belonged to which couple. Pristina was next in age, then Lalina, then the apprentice card-maker Mulbina. Elfina, who was not-quite thirty, was the youngest. Some of the daughters were prettier than others, some plumper, some mousy and others dark-haired, but all resembled their mother in one respect or another. The differences in their ages, the styles of their dress and hair enabled Frodo to distinguish quickly between them. All were well-dressed in fabrics made in their mill, for all were involved in the mill in some capacity while they learned their family business.

Although Carina and Dosina were presently more concerned with bringing up their families and didn't go to the mill every day, they were the chief designers of new patterns: Carina favored flowers, while Dosina preferred geometric patterns, especially dots. Lalina, who was apprenticed to her brothers-in-law in the dye room, spent her days mixing colors. Frodo recalled noticing her when Mrs. Spindlethrift had escorted him through the room, although they hadn't then been introduced.

"I suppose you're looking forward to designing your own patterns as well," Frodo said to Lalina over dinner. The young woman had been wearing a remarkable kerchief of purple and yellow paisley earlier while at work, which had drawn his attention.

"Oh, no," she answered. "I like making colors, Mr. Baggins. I'm learning how to making the dyes from plants and roots and beetles' wings. And when they let me, I like mixing things up in different ways and finding new colors."

"When we let Lally mix whatever she fancies, most of it turns out to be a muddy mess," Nardo Nutley, the elder brother and Carina's husband, laughed.

"But sometimes Lally makes beautiful new colors," Carina defended her sister. "That bright pink she made last week 'twas like sommat you'd see in a sunrise. If it holds true on the thread, I have some pretty little rosebuds I want to use it for once this trouble with the weavers is over."

"I know a painter who invents his own colors," Frodo told them. "He's made some splendid shades of red and purple I'd never seen before. Lio Darrowby is his name. He lives in the Southfarthing, in Budlingsbank. If you like, Miss Lalina, I could introduce you to him via correspondence."

"Could you, Mr. Baggins?" the girl asked eagerly. "That'd be wonderful, learning from somebody who knows… only, it wouldn't be asking him to give away his secrets?"

"We can but ask him and find out," said Frodo. "Lio makes dyes to sell his new colors on yarns and embroidery threads in his sundries shop, but that's only because he can't make his living painting portraits alone. He isn't interested in weaving cloth. If your mother agrees and makes him a reasonable offer, I expect he'd be willing to sell you information about how to make what he calls 'puce' or 'magenta'."

"You might marry him into the family business, Lally, and get all these wonderful colors for free," teased Nondillo, the younger Nutley brother. "It'd be a better match for you'n that Bindbole lad you was walking out with this summer past. Now, he wanted into the business, but had naught to give us in turn."

Lalina's face was bright pink, if not exactly the same rosebud shade that her sister admired. Frodo, who'd been trying to find some delicate way to suggest that Lio Darroby wasn't the sort to marry any girl, grew curious about Lalina's last suitor. "Who was this lad?" he asked.

"Nobody," Lalina mumbled. "Just a boy."

"He came out o' Bindbole Wood and took work at the paper mill upstream," said Dosina. "I thought he was sweet, Mr. Baggins, but some o' the family didn't like him."

"He was asking too many questions, m'dear," said Nondillo. "A lad that's courting a girl as pretty as our Lally oughter be paying more attention to her than our work here."

"He was expecting to come in 'n' work with me when we wed," Lalina responded.

"Snooping, he was, my lass. Ma agreed with me--didn't you, Ma?" Nondillo turned to his mother-in-law for confirmation. "You turned 'm away and he hasn't come near Lally since. It wouldn't surprise me if he was the one behind this trouble o' ours."

Lalina abruptly left the table; Elfina rose and went after her.

"You shouldn't've said such things about poor Lally's sweetheart like that," Dosina scolded her husband. "Not in front o' Mr. Baggins."

"No," said Frodo, "if you have suspicions of anyone, I must hear them." He addressed the Spindlethrifts all around the table. "Is there anyone else I ought to know about who might wish to do harm to your family business--an unhappy weaver, or someone you've dismissed who might bear a grudge?"

"There was that Larksey woman we turned off right before this trouble started," said Pristina. "You remember, Jem? That widow-lady that said she could spin 'n' weave good as anybody we had working for us, but when you put her at the wheel, she couldn't manage an even thread--and she was worse at the looms!"

"I remember her," Jemina answered. "She couldn't get used to our way of doing things at all. But she couldn't've got in to spoil the loom-cards. She wouldn't know how."

"Some weavers from down south was here for awhile in September," said Mrs. Spindlethrift. "They said they was going to open a shop o' their own. Now, I've no quarrel with other weavers. They've a right to make a living best as they can, same as anybody else. But they came to call on me at the mill and asked about our looms."

"You should've tossed 'em out on their ears, Ma," said Nardo.

"Well, I didn't let 'em into the weaving room," Mrs. Spindlethrift replied. "That's what matters. They went back where they come from weeks ago. I'd've forgotten about 'em if you hadn't asked, Mr. Baggins, but now you do ask, it comes to me that they might've taken against us and got one o' our weavers to play tricks."

"Who can come and go into the workrooms at the mill?" Frodo asked.

"We don't let visitors come 'n' go as they please, Mr. Baggins, even if they aren't weavers themselves," Mrs. Spindlethrift told him. "If there's an outsider coming in, me or Pristy or Jem walks 'em about and sees they don't get to poking in where they don't belong or making a mischief. Nobody's let into the weaving or dyeing rooms unless they're with one o' us."

"Or if they have work there," said Pristina. "I hope we can trust our own weavers and spinsters, Mum."

"'Tisn't only to keep our secrets, Mr. Baggins," her mother explained. "'tis an interruption to our work if there's folk going in 'n' out, getting themselves underfoot. The Dyers 'specially don't want anybody getting in and making a mess."

The Nutley brothers agreed that there were a great many boiling pots of dye and jars of powders lying around their workroom, and a mess of many colors was a terrible thing to clean up.

"What about the card room?" asked Frodo. "Who's allowed in there?"

"I keep that under lock 'n' key when I'm not in it," said Jacimbo. After a moment's struggle with himself, he added, "Only… I suppose somebody might've got hold of the key off of me and got in to do some mischief with the hole-punching machine, or else I forgot to lock the door once." He looked defiantly around the table, then met his sister-in-law's eyes. "I didn't want to say so, Min, but it's been on my mind and since you brought Mr. Baggins here to hear such things, he might as well." He turned to Frodo. "It'd only take once, wouldn't it, Mr. Baggins?"

"Yes, if the person who got into your workroom knew what he or she was doing. If the holes in those cards are nonsense, as you say, Mr. Spindlethrift, then this person wouldn't have to worry about getting the teeth in the machine arranged properly, as he would if he were trying to make cards for a weaving pattern."

"But why would he do such a thing, Mr. Baggins?" asked Carina. "Just for spite?"

"Perhaps," said Frodo. "He may have been intending to put the false cards into sets to cause confusion and delays to your weavers, exactly as it's happened. Or he may have been after something else. Perhaps he was a spy for rival weavers and was attempting to learn how to punch holes in the cards for himself, when he was interrupted and forced to flee before he was discovered in a place where he had no right to be. He accidentally left his cards behind for Miss Mulbina to find, and she naturally mistook them for some replacement cards her uncle had made." Frodo also had another theory about Mulbina's part in this, but he wanted to speak to her privately about it before drawing any conclusions. "He may have wanted samples of some of your loom-cards to show to someone else, so they could make cards of their own." He looked around the table again. "Do you know if any of your cards have ever been stolen?"

"They get carried off sometimes, to be sure," said Mrs. Spindlethrift. "We burn the worn-out ones whenever we can, but our weavers talk about their work and might take cards home to show their families. We can't stop 'em from doing it."

"Might they tell other weavers, like the ones who were here in September?"

"That they might, Mr. Baggins," Pristina answered. "But one card alone won't tell 'em much, nor even a whole set."

"It's like I told you before, Mr. Baggins," her mother said. "The cards is only half our secret. Everybody in the Shire's heard about how we do our fancy weaving. There's been plenty o' time to talk over these fifty years since Father Spindlethrift built his first special loom. If somebody wanted to steal our secret, they'd have to build the right sort of loom to use the cards on."

"And nobody's managed that yet," added Jemina with a note of pride.

"It'd need a machine-minded hobbit like Grand-dad or Uncle Jacco looking over one o' our looms and having it all writ down before they could make their own like it," Pristina concluded.

"Are you responsible for maintaining the looms as well as the cards, Mr. Spindlethrift?" Frodo asked.

"That's right, sir," Jacimbo answered. "My dad taught me and my brother when we was lads. I keep 'em up, and make new parts when the old uns wear out."

"And nobody else? Will you teach Miss Mulbina?"

"I expect I'll have to, sooner or later," the elderly hobbit responded. "There's no lads in our family grown enough to teach, but somebody's got to learn how to do it before I'm so old I must leave off my work. Just the same, I don't like leaving it to a lass. I never saw a lass yet that had a mind for machines. Machines, Mr. Baggins, is like businesses. No woman's got a head for 'em."

"I have a better head for business 'n you do, Jacimbo Spindlethrift," his sister-in-law retorted with some asperity. "Even if I an't got one for machines. Where'd we be if I left the managing o' the mill to you after my poor husband passed on?"

"Weaving and spinning've always been a woman's business," Jemina added. "If we must work, could we have more fitting work to do? We--all us here--was brought up to it at Mum's own feet. We've been 'round those looms of Grand-dad's since we was old enough to stand. Why shouldn't Mulby learn how to fix 'em, Uncle, if you show her how?"

"Why, if we didn't take up the business, Uncle Jacco, who would?" asked Carina. "You and Mum mightn't agree on much, but I remember what a fuss you both made when Dosina 'n' me got married and our husbands tried to take a bigger hand in the shop. They're dyers, you said, and no more, and they wouldn't get to run the place 'til you was in the vault--and maybe not even then!" Her sisters laughed, but the two husbands didn't look as if they found this jape at all funny.
Chapter 5 by Kathryn Ramage
After dinner, Jacimbo, the married daughters and their families returned to their own homes. Before he went back to the inn, Frodo tried to speak to Lalina, but when her mother sent for her, her youngest sister emerged from the room they shared to inform them that, "Lally's gone to bed, weeping fit to break her heart." She seemed to blame Frodo as much for this as she did the others at the table.

"There now--you'll have to wait 'til tomorrow," Mrs. Spindlethrift said apologetically once she'd heard what Elfina had to say. "I don't what to do about that girl. The poor lass gets herself worked into a state whenever she hears somebody speaking ill about that lad. I expect that's just what you wanted to ask her about, Mr. Baggins?"

Frodo acknowledged that this was so.

"Well, I can tell you a bit about him. Lally brought him 'round once or twice when she was first walking out with him. I like to see all the lads my girls are sweet on. 'Tis a mother's duty. He didn't seem like a wrong un at first, nice-looking and pleasant-like, but Nondillo's right--he asked an awful lot of questions about our business and it made me wonder if that was what he was after instead o' my Lally." Mrs. Spindlethrift regarded him with a speculative eye, as if she knew there was more on his mind than Lalina's sweetheart. "Is there any o' my other girls you want to talk to, Mr. Baggins?"

"Yes. May I speak to Mulbina, please?" Frodo requested. "I didn't want to question her in front of all your family, but I believe she can tell me more about how those cards got mixed into the weavers' sets than she has."

Mrs. Spindlethrift consented, but whether out of a mother's sense of protectiveness or out of curiosity, she insisted on being there while Frodo questioned her daughter. Frodo doubted that Mulbina would be willing to confide in him fully with her mother present, but he didn't see how he could send his client away without being rude. He accompanied Mrs. Spindlethrift to the back-parlor and waited while Elfina was sent to fetch Mulbina.

Mulbina came in alone and sat down on the sofa, facing him nervously. "You wanted to ask me sommat more, Mr. Baggins?"

"That's right." It seemed to Frodo that the best tactic was to get right to the point. "I want you to tell me the truth, Miss Mulbina. It will save us all a great deal of trouble. Your mother won't be angry if you're honest about what happened." Mrs. Spindlethrift nodded to agree with this. "Tell us, did you make those faulty cards?" he asked. "Were the replacement cards your uncle made somehow lost or accidentally destroyed, so you tried to make your own replacements using that machine of his?"

"No, Mr. Baggins!" Mulbina insisted. "I never touched that precious machine o' Uncle Jacco's. He wouldn't let me. The proper cards was lost--only I didn't lose 'em."

With some coaxing, the story came out. The last time Mulbina had gone into her uncle's workroom to perform her usual task of replacing worn-out cards, the stack of replacements were not on the table where Jacimbo normally left them for her. She'd looked around until she'd found what she believed were the replacements. "But now I think on it, they must've been those bad uns, Mr. Baggins."

"So you put these cards into the sets, and didn't notice that they weren't the right ones?"

"I might've," the girl conceded, "if I was working fast to have the job done and didn't look close at 'em."

"And were you working as fast as that, my lass?" her mother asked her.

"Yes, Mum," Mulbina mumbled.

In spite of her mother's assurance that she wouldn't be angry, the girl would probably have been in for a scolding for this carelessness if Frodo hadn't pursued his own questions before Mrs. Spindlethrift could work herself up to it. "Mulbina," he said, "where did you find this stack of cards that you used for replacements? You said that they weren't on the work-table in the usual place. Did you have to search for them?"

"I did search, Mr. Baggins," said Mulbina. "I looked all over, 'til I found 'em in the drawer in the table, just under the machine. Uncle Jacco keeps it locked most days, but it wasn't locked up then. I thought maybe Uncle tucked 'em away quick-like when somebody came in and forgot to set 'em out for me. It took so long to find 'em, I got behind my time and was going to be late home for dinner. That's why I was working so fast," she explained to her mother. "I didn't stop to notice the new ones I was putting in wasn't the same as the old cards I took out."

After Mulbina was allowed to go, Mrs. Spindlethrift shook her head sadly. "I don't know what to say, Mr. Baggins. It shames me to hear a daughter o' mine could be so flighty over her work. All the same, I would've been glad to hear it was all a mistake of Mulby's, or even Jacco's. That'd be a proper muddle, but it'd be better 'n outright mischief. And that's what it must be. I said so all along."

Frodo had to agree. Someone must have punched out the cards Mulbina had found. If not Jacimbo, then an intruder to his workshop. Had they been left for the apprentice to find and use as she had, or were they not meant to be discovered at all? What purpose had they been made for? He also wondered what happened to the true replacement cards Jacimbo had made.
Chapter 6 by Kathryn Ramage
The Spindlethrift weavers resumed their work the next day, with the instructions that any "wrong" cards that turned up were to be marked so that Pristina could give them to Frodo. Jacimbo confirmed that he'd left the last stack of true replacements in the same place he always did. When Frodo asked him about the stack of cards Mulbina had found in the table drawer, the elderly hobbit denied all knowledge of them. He hadn't made them, and he was sure that Mulbina was somehow responsible for losing the true cards. Before he set himself to the task of punching a fresh set of replacements without the original cards to guide him, Jacimbo began to make a thorough search of his workroom.

While at the mill that morning, Frodo also questioned some of the weavers, but received no impression that any of them were disgruntled or secretly pleased at their employers' misfortune. All the women he spoke with expressed worry at how this problem affected their work and eagerness to get back to their weaving. Frodo then turned his attention to hobbits who were no longer employed by the Spindlethrifts.

He asked Pristina for information about any workers who had recently been dismissed, especially 'that Larksey woman' she'd mentioned the evening before. Where might Mrs. Larksey be found? Was she still living in Oatbarton?

Pristina was certain that Mrs. Larksey was still living in the town, and referred Frodo to Jemina for an address. Jemina was in charge of hiring new workers in all parts of the mill, weavers as well as spinsters, for she had taken up a great deal of the day-to-day responsibilities of running the mill in the past few years, as Mrs. Spindlethrift aged and felt the burden of long working hours more keenly.

"Tell me, Miss Spindlethrift," Frodo ventured once he'd obtained Mrs. Larksey's address from Jemina. "Will you be in charge of the mill once your mother passes on?"

"We'll all come in for a bit of it, Mr. Baggins. It's what Mum brought us up to do."

"But you're the eldest. Will you be the mill's manager?"

Jemina nodded to confirm this. "I expect so. I do most o' the managing now, and Pris will be at my right hand, as Mistress Weaver. She knows the business best, after me."

"If you don't mind a personal question, Miss Spindlethrift," Frodo pressed on, "who will you leave in charge of the mill when the time comes? Your sisters' children?"

"That's right," she answered. "It'll be one o' the little uns that're already born, or one who isn't yet born. The young lasses'll marry and have children too. Pris might marry yet."

"But not you?" This was a very personal question, but Jemina didn't take offense.

"Not me, Mr. Baggins," she answered with a slight smile. "I made up my mind to it when I was no older'n Elfy that courting and marrying weren't for me. Spinster by nature as much as by trade, that's me. One of the young uns'll show promise and I'll know who to pick to carry on the business one day."

"Won't that mean the end of Spindlethrifts'? I mean, the mill will still be here, but its owners will be named Nutley or something else, depending on whom your younger sisters marry."

"Yes, that's so," Jemina agreed. "I don't like it, and neither do Mum nor Uncle Jacco, but there's no way 'round it now. There's no Spindlethrift sons."

"You could ask your brothers-in-law to change their names instead of making their wives take theirs," Frodo suggested.

This made Jemina laugh. "I said that once, when Dosy and Carina got married. You should've seen the looks on those Nutley lads' faces! Like I'd asked 'em both to cut off a toe. Mum took their side. She said that fine folk like the Tooks might do such a thing, but it wasn't fitting for weavers like us to give ourselves airs over our name. Mum doesn't like the Nutleys, but she wouldn't make 'em give up their name for ours."

"Your sister Carina said that her husband and his brother want to take a greater part in the business, and your mother won't let them," Frodo recalled the conversation over dinner.

"I expect they thought when they married Spindlethrift lasses, they'd get to be in charge o' the whole mill," said Jemina, "but Mum soon put her foot down about that. They came to us as dyers, and that's where they're suited to stay. They won't get more while Mum lives, nor while me 'n' Pris do. The mill'll most likely be called Nutleys' in the end, when a son or daughter o' theirs gets picked to carry on, so let 'em be happy with that."
Chapter 7 by Kathryn Ramage
Mrs. Larksey turned out to be an elderly widow who lived in a tiny cottage on the far side of Oatbarton, upstream of the many mills. Her sons, who worked in the sawing mill, supported her, but she'd been a skilled weaver and spinner before her marriage. She had even worked for Old Mr. Spindlethrift in the days before his new-fangled loom.

"It's those new machines as caused all the trouble," she told Frodo when he called on her later that day to ask about her employment. "That's not the sort o' weaving I was taught to do when I was girl, and them hard-hearted Spindlethrift girls wouldn't hear o' doing things in the proper way. The old ways is always best, I say, and there's no need to change 'em. But they wouldn't listen to me. Those Spindlethrifts've got above themselves and think they know what's the best way to weave a piece o' cloth. That Miss Pris said I wasn't suited to the sort o' work they liked, and they had no need o' my services. Then she paid me my last wages and sent me off home."

While the old woman certainly seemed to bear the Spindlethrifts a grudge, Frodo doubted that she could be the one who had made the faulty cards. She obviously didn't have the technical skills nor sufficient understanding of how the looms worked to sabotage them; if she had, Pristina never would have dismissed her, and she would have no reason to wish the family ill.

Or would she? After he left the cottage and was walking along a path beside the stream back toward the heart of the town, Frodo reconsidered this point. Mrs. Larksey had known the Spindlethrifts for many years. She wasn't very much older than Mrs. Spindlethrift. Could the two women once have been rivals for their employers' son? If Mrs. Spindlethrift had triumphed over Mrs. Larksey in this respect, it could certainly cause long years of resentment. And Mrs. Larksey might have someone more clever to help her in seeking revenge...

While Frodo was turning this possibility over in his mind and wondering how he could broach such a delicate question to his client, he noticed a young couple standing amidst a cluster of trees beside the path ahead of him. He glimpsed the girl only from the back, but she was wearing a purple and yellow paisley kerchief over her hair, just like the one Lalina had been wearing when Mrs. Spindlethrift had led him through the dyeing room. Lalina had also been absent from the mill this morning. Frodo was sure that it must be she. He was equally certain that the fair-headed boy with her now was the lad her family didn't approve of.

As he drew closer to them, the boy noticed him, said something to the girl, and darted away in the opposite direction.

"Mr. Baggins!" Lalina whirled to face him. "What're you doing out here? I thought you'd be at the mill all day with Mum."

"I'm looking into some suspects, Miss Lalina--people who might wish harm to your family business." Frodo looked over her shoulder, but the boy had disappeared. The paper mill, he noted, was just on the other side of the copse. "By the way, who was that you were talking to?"

"A lad I know," she answered with a show of indifference. "His name's Comfrey Catswort."

"Is he the one-?"

"He is." Lalina regarded him more anxiously. "You won't tell, will you?"

"I won't tell," said Frodo, "unless it turns out that he has something to do with this problem with the looms."

"Well, he doesn't!"

"How can you be so sure, Miss Lalina?"

"Comfrey's no spy. If he was asking questions about weaving, it's only because we both had a hope that he might leave off pressing wet paper and come work at Spindlethrifts' with me once we were wed. Why-" she hesitated, then announced, "I'm more of a spy'n he is."

There was a defiant, even boastful, tone to this that made Frodo believe she was lying to shield her sweetheart. Nevertheless, he asked, "What do you mean? Who were you spying for?"

Her answer took him by surprise. "Them weavers as was here last month."

"The weavers from somewhere in the south?"

"That's right. Mum didn't tell you, Mr. Baggins? Them weavers came to call on us specially. They thought as we'd like to have a share in a mill they was starting down Michel-Delving way. We'd be partners, and they'd have looms just like ours, if we'd tell 'em how to build one. They told Mum that one of us could go and be their Mistress Weaver to show 'em how to weave just the way we do. They asked Pristy first, but she wouldn't leave Oatbarton. They didn't dare ask Jem, and Elfy and Mulby are too young and just learning the trade. So they asked me. I would've gone too. Me and Comfrey could've run off together and got married. And why not? I'm of age, and we'd be as happy in Michel Delving as anyplace else."

"Then why didn't you, Miss Lalina?" Frodo asked her.

At this question, Lalina abruptly lost her proud defiance. "I would've… only, I couldn't tell 'em what they wanted to know," she admitted.

"About the looms?"

Lalina nodded. "I don't know how they work. Comfrey doesn't either. If we run off in the end, it won't be over them looms."
Chapter 8 by Kathryn Ramage
"I have a question to ask you, Master Dyers," Frodo began once he'd returned to the Spindlethrift mill, and sought out the two brothers in the dyeing room. "There were some rivals weavers who called here in September--Mrs. Spindlethrift mentioned them last night. Before they left Oatbarton, did they ask you or your wives to come and work with them in Michel Delving?" The question had occurred to Frodo on his walk back up along the stream into town. Surely young Lalina wasn't the only member of the family they'd spoken to.

"Now how'd you'd find out about that, Mr. Baggins?" Nardo asked in response, confirming Frodo's suspicion.

"It's my work to find out such things, Mr. Nutley. Was it you alone they made their offer to, or your brother-" he nodded in the direction of Nondillo, who was gaping at him in surprise, "or to the Mrs. Nutleys?"

"To all o' us," Nardo answered. "'Twas the day after Ma Spindlethrift showed 'em off the premises here at the mill, saying she didn't want to be partners. Before they went back to where they belonged, they called at our house up on the hill first thing in the morning. Now, my Carina and Dillo's Dosina turned 'em down without hearing 'em out, same as their mum did, but they walked down the road with us and asked if that was the last answer we'd give."

"They said they wanted a good manager," Nondillo added. "Now you heard last night, Mr. Baggins, how Ma Spindlethrift is about not letting us take a hand in anything, and her girls all stand by her on it, even Dosy and Carina. We was ready to say we'd go..." he glanced at his brother for confirmation.

"But you didn't," concluded Frodo. After his conversation with Lalina, he could also guess why. "They wanted someone who could tell them all about the Spindlethrift looms."

"That's right, Mr. Baggins!" said Nardo, impressed all the more deeply by Frodo's detective skills. "It was them looms they wanted a manager for, one that could tell 'em how the contraptions worked."

"And you couldn't tell them?"

Both brothers shook their heads. "Besides," said Nondillo, "if we did know, our wives'd smother us in our beds if we gave away a family secret like that."




When he left the Nutleys, Frodo found Mrs. Spindlethrift in a small office off the weaving room, instructing Elfina on the important task of how to choose which patterns the weavers were to work on. Some more of the faulty cards had turned up while he was out, and Mrs. Spindlethrift gave these to him before asking about his interview with Mrs. Larksey.

When Frodo broached his idea about the elderly woman's long-standing grudge against the family, Mrs. Spindlethrift dismissed it with a laugh. The subject wasn't a delicate one for her at all; Mrs. Larksey had never been her rival, but had left the mill to marry before she'd begun to work there. "If she ever had an eye on my husband, Mr. Baggins, it was all over and done with long before I ever set eyes on him."

Frodo then asked her about the weavers who had visited in September. Was she aware that they'd tried to recruit a manager for their mill from among her family?

"I knew they wanted my Jem or Pristy to go down to Michel Delving," Mrs. Spindlethrift answered. "They said so right out, and Pristy came the next day and told me that they came back and asked her again, private-like, after I said I didn't want to be partners with anybody." She gave him that sharp, knowing look again. "Who else did they ask, Mr. Baggins?"

"Nearly all your family, as far as I can tell. I haven't asked Mr. Spindlethrift yet."

"Oh, the deceitful wretches!" Mrs. Spindlethrift slapped her thigh and rose from her chair. "I told 'em 'No' once, and that ought've been the end of it. Instead, there's all this sneaking about behind my back, hoping to steal one o' my girls away. Are they at the back o' this trouble?"

"If they are, I'm not sure what their purpose is," Frodo answered. He was still trying to puzzle out just what the false cards were intended to do. "If they're after the secret of your looms, what can they hope to accomplish by ruining your weavers' work? They aren't here in Oatbarton anymore, so if they are behind this, then they must have someone working with them at the mill to make the false loom-cards. They've asked several members of your family to join them in Michel Delving. If one is in league with these weavers, why didn't they simply go to Michel Delving with them? Why try to ruin the family business? You might forgive them going away, but they'd gain nothing by betraying you."

"That's true enough," Mrs. Spindlethrift agreed. "If a daughter o' mine'd do such a thing, then she'd be no true daughter. And her sisters'd feel the same. She might as well change her name to sommat else."

At that moment, Pristina summoned her mother away the weaving room; another false card had turned up. Elfina remained seated with Frodo, and regarded him shyly.

"You knew about it, didn't you, Miss Elfina?" Frodo asked her. "You knew that these other weavers spoke to your sister." He didn't specify which of her many sisters he meant, but he'd perceived that she and Lalina were close and probably in each others' confidence.

Elfina seemed to understand, and nodded.

"Did they ask you as well?"

"No, Mr. Baggins," Elfina answered softly. "I never spoke to 'em, though I know sommat about the looms. Uncle Jacco almost picked me to teach about the cards instead o' Mulby. I expect I know as much as she does. But I'm not yet of age and Mum would never let me go so far off from home to work, even if I was of a mind to."




Before he left the mill, Frodo tried to find out if the Michel Delving weavers had also asked Jacimbo to join them, but when he reached the old hobbit's workroom, he found the door shut and locked. But Jacimbo was certainly within; the sounds of furniture scraping as it was moved across the floor and paper rustling could be heard, and Mulbina sat just outside with teary eyes.

"Uncle Jacco's looking for the proper cards that went missing," she explained. "He says I was the one who lost 'em, Mr. Baggins, and it's up to him to put things right. He says he won't ever have me set foot in his workshop again."

Tapping on the door provoked no response but a shouted, "Go away, girl!" Even after Frodo made several attempts to establish that he wasn't Mulbina and that he only wanted to ask Mr. Spindlethrift a few questions, the door remained shut.

There was only one other person left to ask. Mulbina was also underage, but she had information about the mechanics of the Spindlethrift looms that the rival weavers desired. Had they made their offer to her?

When Frodo asked her, the girl shook her head fiercely and said, "No, Mr. Baggins! They never did, and I never would. I'm in enough trouble over them cards already!"
Chapter 9 by Kathryn Ramage
Frodo had dinner with the Spindlethrifts again that evening, but the atmosphere had changed. Last night, he'd been welcomed as a famous gentlehobbit who had come to help them; tonight, everyone was aware that his attention was focused on one among their family rather than some disgruntled mill-worker or outsider. Frodo didn't know what precisely Mrs. Spindlethrift had said to her daughters and sons-in-law before he'd arrived, but he was certain that, following their afternoon's conversation, his client hadn't been able to keep her own suspicions to herself. Jemina and Pristina cast frequent doubtful glances at the Nutley brothers, and even Nardo's and Nondillo's wives seemed unsure of them. The two brothers wore an air of stubborn defiance. The three younger girls were plainly nervous. Lalina was afraid that Frodo would tell her family about her but meeting with Comfrey. Mulbina had obviously wept again since Frodo had seen her last, and Elfina was even more shy than usual.

The one person who seemed oblivious to the tension around him was Jacimbo, who came in late. As the elderly hobbit joined the others at the dinner table, he announced triumphantly that he'd finally discovered the missing replacement cards.

"They were on the table all the time," he told Frodo, "under some piles o' paper and my cutting tools. If that lass Mulby had only looked about a bit more, they woulda turned up and saved us this trouble." He gave the girl a scornful glance. "I put 'em all in their proper places myself before I come here, rather'n leave the task to her, and the sets'll be fit to run tomorrow. I promise you, Mr. Baggins, she won't be getting her hands on none o' my cards again."

Fresh tears welled in Mulbina's already red-rimmed eyes at this termination of her apprenticeship. Frodo's heart went out to her. While she was the one who'd put the false cards into the sets for the looms, he doubted that she'd been anything but a dupe in this. But whose?

"That's all very well, Mr. Spindlethrift," he answered, "but it doesn't explain where those other cards came from, or who made them."

"'Twas only some piece o' mischief," Jacimbo replied. "Mischief 'n' foolishness, I won't say whose." It was plain who he was referring to, for his eyes were still on his former apprentice. "I always said it'd come to no good end, having a lass learn how to make the cards. I won't have another, Minna. I'll wait 'til one of the dyers' little lads is grown, if I don't give up working before then."

Mulbina sobbed. Elfina, Frodo noted, also looked abashed.

In light of the number of Spindlethrifts already in a state of distress, and not wishing to reawaken his client's strong feelings about the Michel Delving weavers, Frodo didn't ask Jacimbo about them at that time. He waited until they'd left Mrs. Spindlethrift's home and were walking together back toward the center of town. Jacimbo lived in a small cottage near the mill, where he and his late brother had been brought up before their father had become a great success.

Once they were alone, he tentatively broached the subject, "I didn't have the chance to ask you before, Mr. Spindlethrift, but I've heard several accounts of those visiting weavers from the south seeking information about your looms from members of the family. They didn't speak to you, did they?"

Jacimbo huffed indignantly. "Are you saying I'd spy for these folk, Mr. Baggins?"

"No, I only ask. I've asked all the others and, as I say, learned that these weavers did invite several of them to come and work in Michel Delving-"

"Well, they never asked me to come away! As if I'd leave my home after all these years to go traipsing half-way down the Shire!" The elderly hobbit grew more agitated. "Going 'round asking such tom-fool questions--you don't know nothing! I told Minna she was wrong to bring outsiders in to poke about 'n' get underfoot. If she'd left well enough alone, this trouble would've sorted itself out right enough without you raising more trouble by prying in where it's no business o' yours to be."

Jacimbo turned and, with one parting huff, hastened off toward the footpath that led to his home. Frodo didn't pursue him, but went down the Oatbarton high street to the inn.

As he entered the crowded public rooms at the front of the inn, the innkeeper called out to him, "Mr. Baggins! Ye've a visitor come calling, the one you waiting for. I sent him to his dinner while he was a-waiting you."

At this news, Frodo went immediately to the private dining room. He grinned at the sight of the familiar and well-beloved figure seated at the table. Sam had finally arrived.

"Sam!" Frodo gave his friend a swift hug around the shoulders and kissed his cheek. "How delightful to see you! I'm so glad you came." He took a seat in the chair next to Sam's. "I've been longing for someone to discuss this case with. Talking about my ideas always helps to lay them out more clearly in my mind, and I'm afraid right now that all my ideas are in a terrible muddle."

While Sam finished eating, Frodo described the Spindlethrift family and his thoughts about each of them. "There are seven daughters, Sam. Of the eldest four, two are married and the other two unmarried and have no intention ever to wed. Miss Jemina says so plainly and Miss Pristina feels the same as far as I can tell. They are dedicated to the family business and will be happy to take charge of it after their mother passes on. But it's the children of the married sisters who will probably inherit the mill in the end. I wonder if there isn't some resentment there, on one side or the other, but I can't see either pair of sisters wishing to damage the family's livelihood. They all seem fiercely loyal to their mother. The two married sisters' husbands, on the other hand, are certainly resentful of their mother-in-law. They're brothers named Nardo and Nondillo Nutley, and they worked for Mrs. Spindlethrift as dyers before they married her daughters. They're dyers still. She's kept them firmly in their place and won't let them take a greater part in the management of the mill. They might be happy to see it fail as Spindlethrifts', in hopes of raising it up again as Nutleys'.

"Then there are the three younger girls. Lalina is eager to run off with a lad her family doesn't approve of. They claim that the lad is only courting her to spy on them, but Lalina refuses to believe it. If he isn't behind this, I suppose she might want to sabotage things out of spite for their trying to spoil her love-affair. She works with the dyers and says she knows nothing about the looms, but that's an easy thing to lie about. Mulbina is the one who works with her uncle on the looms, so she has good opportunities to start the sort of trouble that's been happening at the mill." Frodo remained mindful of his promise to Mrs. Spindlethrift to keep the use of the weavers' cards a secret, even from Sam, and was deliberate vague about what this trouble was. "But all the same, I don't believe she did. That is, Mulbina is responsible for the part of the problem that brought her mother to me--I've learned that much--but her involvement otherwise seems to be purely an accident."

"And what about the last one?" asked Sam, who had been keeping count.

"That's Elfina, the youngest daughter. She tells me that she also knows something about the looms. She's a curious girl, Sam. I suspect she's clever, but she's quiet. You know how those quiet girls are: you never can tell what they're thinking, and they astonish you with it when they do speak out. It occurred to me only this evening that she might've done some mischief to play a mean trick on Mulbina and put an end to her sister's apprenticeship under their uncle--which has indeed happened."

"Now why would she do that?"

"To take her sister's place," Frodo explained. "Well, if that was her intention, her hopes have been dashed. Their uncle Jacimbo declares that he won't take another female apprentice. I haven't yet told you about Jacimbo Spindlethrift. He's Mrs. Spindlethrift's brother-in-law. She doesn't like him, and he doesn't seem to like her or any of her daughters very much. He hasn't a very high opinion of women's abilities at all. I'm sure he's spiteful enough to act against Mrs. Spindlethrift if he had some reason."

"Has he got a reason?" Sam asked.

"Not that I've discovered. He manages the looms and actually makes the important pieces that have been tampered with, so he's in the best position of anyone to spoil the weavers' work. He could also have played the trick on Mulbina. But why would he? The mill is his business as much as Mrs. Spindlethrift's, and he has as much to lose if it goes awry. Nevertheless, I've noticed one or two peculiar things about him. They could simply be the vagaries of a grumpy old hobbit who dislikes an 'outsider' prying into his family affairs, but all the same, I must wonder… By the way, Sam, did you have the inn-keeper bring your baggage to my room, or should I send someone to fetch it now before we settle in for the night?"

They had left the dining room while Frodo was talking and, hand-in-hand, were now walking away from the public rooms at the front of the inn and down the corridor toward the bed-chambers at the back. At the door to his room, Frodo stopped.

"I had him carry it in before I got something to eat," Sam answered the question. "He told me you were having supper over at Mrs. Spindlethrift's and didn't know when you'd be back. It didn't seem right for me to go out looking for you and inviting myself, you might say, into a house where I wasn't asked."

"Mrs. Spindlethrift would've welcomed you, but her daughters and sons-in-law were already suspicious and uncomfortable with one investigator in their midst tonight," Frodo replied with a laugh as they went into the room. "Another calling unexpectedly might've sent them into a flutter for good or ill--either made someone slip up and tell the truth, or else shut them all up tightly. I'll bring you to the mill with me to introduce you tomorrow and we'll see what they do then." He shut the door and flung his arms around Sam's neck to give him a kiss. "I am glad you're here with me," he repeated, this time giving the words a more personal significance. "I missed being away from you, even if only for a day. It's wonderful that you were able to come so quickly after all."

"I did like you said, and sent your note to your cousin Peony after you left," Sam told him as they began to prepare for bed. "She wrote back she'd be glad to look after the twins, so I took 'em over to the Old Place yesterday. I meant to leave Nel and little Frodo at home with Fern, but I expect they'll be spending most of the day over at the Old Place too."

Frodo sat down at the foot of the bed as he undid his shirt buttons. "Why?"

"Angelica's there with her two little uns." Angelica's daughter Willa was just a year older than Elanor, and her son and little Frodo were only a few weeks apart; the children had naturally become close friends. "You know how they all want to play together whenever 'Gelica brings 'em to Hobbiton. I told 'Gelica she could come and call for Nel and Frodo at Bag End while we were out." Sam was undressing before the fireplace, carefully placing his clothes over a nearby wooden chair. When he finished, he dispensed with the nightshirt in his traveling pack and joined Frodo on the bed. "Here's a funny thing, Frodo," he said after another kiss. "When I told Angelica you'd gone to help Mrs. Spindlethrift, she said there was news in Michel Delving about some weavers that're going to have patterns like Spindlethrifts' soon."

At the words "Michel Delving," Frodo became alert. "Did she say how they plan to do that?"

"She heard tell that they're building a special loom of their own." Sam could see that this information had completely captured Frodo's attention. "D'you think they could?"

"What one hobbit with a mechanical turn of mind can invent, so can another, but it's interesting that they should be making such an announcement now." These weavers must surely be the same ones who had visited Oatbarton and tried to lure members of the Spindlethrift family away into partnership with them. No Spindlethrifts taken up this offer, but one of them must have provided the necessary information about how to make and work their looms. The other weavers now had it, or were shortly expecting to receive it. But what did all of this have to do with the false loom-cards, which could only be made by the hole-punching machine in Jacimbo's workshop? How did the two connect? Surely, they must connect. It couldn't be coincidence that they should happen at the same time.

While Frodo was considering this question, Sam snuggled down beside him under the quilt and pulled him close. He pushed the problem to the back of his mind and gave Sam his attention. This was, after all, why he'd invited Sam to join him in Oatbarton. They were miles from Bag End, sad memories of Rosie, and all the cares and worries of home. For at least this night, and perhaps one or two after it, they could think only of themselves. They could remember the many happy hours they'd spent together in each other's arms in other inns like this.

They were beginning to make love, when Frodo suddenly cried out, "That's it!" He scrambled free of Sam's embrace and leapt out of bed. "Sam, I've got it!"

"Got what?" Sam echoed, bewildered.

"The answer to this mystery." Frodo pulled on his dressing-gown and searched through the pockets of the jacket he'd been wearing earlier in the day. When he found the key to the bottom drawer of the wardrobe, he crouched down to unlock it and took out the packet of cards.

"What're those?" Sam asked as he watched Frodo open the packet and hold the cards up to the firelight one by one.

"The most important part of this mystery, and the part that didn't make sense to me, until now," Frodo replied as he laid the cards out on the floor. "See the holes? According to knowledgeable hobbits, they don't form a weaver's pattern, yet I'm certain that they aren't nonsense, Sam. They have a purpose. These holes mean something. If my idea is right, they were punched in this manner to convey something other than a pattern for weaving. I can guess what, but I must find out how."

Frodo settled down to work, his mind entirely focused on the pieces of the puzzle spread out before him. Sam was still dumbfounded and a bit disappointed by the strange and abrupt turn the evening had taken--but then, he was used to strange and abrupt turns where Frodo was concerned. With his head resting in the crook of one arm, he shut his eyes and settled down to wait.




Some hours later, Sam woke when Frodo laughed out loud. He opened his eyes to find Frodo still seated on the floor in his dressing-gown. The cards were no longer scattered all around him, but arranged into neat rows or stacked into little piles. Frodo's head was down; he had a piece of paper on his knee and was writing with Sam's slate pencil.

"You figured it out?" Sam asked sleepily.

"As a matter of fact, I have," Frodo answered. "It is a code, and very simple to read once you know how. It's all plain numbers and letters--one hole for A, two for B, and so on. There are no spaces between the words, nor punctuation, but I feel rather foolish that it took me so long to understand it. I noticed right away that all the rows of holes started at the left-hand end, but it took me an everlasting time to realize that no row had more than six-and-twenty holes."

Sam was too drowsy to want to hear more about the code. "Are you coming back to bed?"

"In a moment, my dear. I want to finish writing out this message."
Chapter 10 by Kathryn Ramage
"'The hooks is made of brass and long as a grone hobits arm from elbo to fingerend,'" Frodo read aloud as he and Sam sat in the private dining room having breakfast late the next morning. Since he'd been up half the night decoding the message contained in the cards, Frodo had slept in, then spent some time making up for it to Sam before they'd come out of their room. "'Make them thin as nedles so as to pass throo the holes in the cards with a fine bend at one end to catch the threds. The hooks must pass thru the holes and not catch on them else they tir the cards. The other ends is set in a board as has plenty of ply and give to it. Set them in rows haf an inch apart as many as neded to weve the patern.' Do you know what this is, Sam?"

Sam shook his head.

"It's a set of instructions, describing how to build a Spindlethrift loom--quite precise instructions, though they aren't complete. There's nothing about how to make these cards. I suppose that sending samples of the cards themselves is instruction enough, or else he's sent away part of his message to Michel Delving already."

"He," Sam caught the pronoun. "Then it isn't one o' the daughters?"

"Oh, no. There's only one person who could have done this," Frodo replied. "Only one Spindlethrift knows enough about the looms to provide such detailed information and can send what he knows in this particular way."

Frodo had mentioned three male hobbits last night and only one Spindlethrift, so Sam had no difficulty in deducing which one he was referring to. "It's that old uncle, isn't it?"

"Exactly, although I can only guess at why he's chosen to give away his family's secret." Frodo set down the decoded message and explained, "I said last night that I found some of his behavior peculiar. Jacimbo Spindlethrift first drew my curiosity when I realized he was trying to seem more ignorant than he truly was. When he told me about his work with the looms, he spoke as if he were merely repeating the tasks his father had taught him without understanding them, but that wasn't so. He understood his craft very well. His family betrayed that fact several times. He implied that when he made cards for the looms, he was simply repeating the original patterns his father created years ago. But two of his nieces spend their days designing new patterns. Surely he must be capable of creating new cards to weave these patterns. There's no one else who can do it! Another of the Spindlethrift daughters told me plainly that only a mechanically-minded hobbit like her grandfather or uncle would be able to describe the looms' workings. So he's as clever in that respect as his father, though from the moment we met, he wished me to believe that he wasn't. I wondered at that, but even when I learned about the weavers from Michel Delving trying to lure members of the family there to work with them and teach them how build their looms, I didn't suspect Jacimbo above any of the others."

Sam smiled. "Not 'til I told you what Angelica told me?"

"No, dear Sam, not until then." Frodo returned the smile. "I mightn't have solved this puzzle if you hadn't come. When you said that these other weavers were going to use looms like the Spindlethrifts', I realized that someone must've given the family secret away. None of them had gone to Michel Delving, but any one among them might easily have written instructions down and sent them through the mail if they possessed the knowledge. Most of them told me they didn't have that knowledge. They could've been lying, of course, but the type of work most of them suggests that they'd have no reason to know. Jacimbo certainly does have the necessary skills. He vociferously denied that the rival weavers had made an offer to him, when I asked him about it last night." Frodo laughed. "Actually, he told me that they never asked him to come away with them. I believe that is true. Whatever offer they made him, he never meant to leave his home here.

"Last night, I realized that the person who'd given the weavers in Michel Delving information about the Spindlethrifts' looms didn't need to write anything down. A letter to Michel Delving might be discovered before it was sent, and betray the writer's plans," Frodo went on. "The Spindlethrifts would certainly recognize Jacimbo's style of writing. Once I saw that, I also saw the explanation for the problem that brought me here: those very cards that I was examining last night. Mrs. Spindlethrift thought someone was using them to sabotage her weavers' work, but that wasn't why they were made. They were never meant to be used on the looms, you see."

Since he couldn't tell Sam exactly how the cards worked on the looms, Frodo knew that Sam didn't see at all, but his friend was doing his best to follow this explanation even if he didn't fully understand the details. Sam nodded anyway.

"Instead of taking the risk of sending written instructions, Jacimbo worked out a code by which he could create and send messages and not draw attention to himself. I suppose he meant to send the cards to Michel Delving in packets. If they were intercepted, they would reveal nothing. But once the cards were received by the rival weavers, they could be read like a letter. Jacimbo could make his coded cards whenever he chose and leave them in his workroom. If anyone saw him, it would look as if he were doing his usual work. He alone had the opportunity to do that. He keeps the machine that makes the cards closely guarded. Mulbina as his apprentice might be able to do it as well, but I have to exclude her because of the part she did end up playing in this. She inadvertently gave her uncle's plan away by giving the weavers the coded cards.

"I don't know exactly how it came about, but I guess that Jacimbo misplaced the last batch of cards he was making. He was searching for them all day today. When Mulbina couldn't find them, she looked around the workroom until she found the coded cards in a drawer and naturally mistook them for the loom-cards. Jacimbo never meant for her to see them. By the time he realized what had happened, it was too late for him to retrieve them. The wrong cards had already gone to the weavers and were being used in the looms. He could only feign bewilderment and indignation with the rest of his family when the inevitable flaws began to turn up in the weavers' work."

"But why did he do it?" Sam asked. "Why'd he want to spoil the family business? You said you could guess."

"Well, it is only my guess, Sam. Take it as you will. Jacimbo is an aged hobbit, preparing to leave off his life's work. He has no sons of his own to carry on that work, as his father left him and his brother to carry on. I believe he sees himself as the last of the true Spindlethrifts. I told you that he dislikes his sister-in-law, and he doesn't hold women in high regard, even his nieces. He doesn't like the idea of even a competent spinster or weaver like Jemina or Pristina managing the family business. If the Spindlethrift mill becomes Nutleys', I imagine it's the same to him as seeing it pass on to other hands anyway. So when these weavers from Michel Delving made their offer, he thought that he might as well make some money out of his father's looms before he retired from his work at the mill. He sold them the secret. Well, perhaps we'll find out the truth from Jacimbo himself. I expect he'll try to deny it at first, but I do have this message to confront him with. He can't deny that. He'll have to confess to what he's done sooner or later."

"Is that what you're going to do now--go confront him?"

"Yes, I'm going the mill. If you're finished with your breakfast, come with me." Frodo rose from his seat and tucked the decoded message into his waistcoat pocket. "I'll show this to Jacimbo and tell him that I know. No matter what he has to say to it, I then must tell Mrs. Spindlethrift. She'll deal with him in her own way. I don't know what she'll do." At the door, Frodo paused. "What can she do? In spite of it all, the damage has been done. The secret of the looms is as much his as hers, and there's nothing to stop him from writing to the rival weavers now. He might even be persuaded to fly to them once his family learns what he's done. They'll never forgive him."

As they left the inn and headed toward the weaving mill, Frodo added, "The one thing I can't forgive Jacimbo for is laying the blame for this on his poor, hapless niece. At least, Miss Mulbina will be happy to know that she isn't at fault. She'll even have a chance to work at the loom-cards again, and learn more quickly about them than her uncle allowed her before. With Jacimbo on his way out one way or another, someone has to learn how to manage those looms if the Spindlethrifts don't want to face a worse disaster."
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