Frodo, not wishing to be underfoot the next morning while Sam and Marigold were feeding the older children and making up trays for Rosie and her mother, waited until the kitchen was quiet, then emerged to have his own breakfast. Sam was gone, but Marigold was still sitting at the table, looking rather weary after spending half the night sitting beside Rose's bed. When Frodo came in, she lifted her head from her arms and gave him a shy smile, as if in apology for having his house overrun by Cottons and Gamgees. Rose was doing well, she informed Frodo; Sam was in having breakfast with her and Mother Cotton now. The little uns had eaten all the toast and jam, but there was a fresh pot of tea just made if Mr. Frodo didn't mind sharing it with her. No, Frodo didn't mind. He found a couple of currant buns in the pantry, nibbled on those while he drank his tea, then left Bag End to go down the Hill to the Sackville-Baggins house.
"Could there be any secret hidey-holes in this house?" he asked Thimula. "What other places might Aunt Lobelia have hidden another box with the will inside?"
Thimula shook her head. "I've gone over it a hundred times, Frodo, and can think of no place we haven't already looked. But something did occur to me in the night. What was the book you found the key in? Could that be important?"
Frodo agreed that it might. They went to Lotho's room and he located the last book he had picked up the night before; it was set atop a stack of others in a small pile on the floor. "Yes, it was this one." He opened it. "There's nothing else between the pages. No writing that shouldn't be there." Lotho's name was inscribed on the inside of the front cover, but Lobelia had added no notes on the margins nor on the blank sides of the illustrations. Frodo next glanced over the text. "It's a tale about a poor widow with a simple-minded son who owns a goose, if that matters. Perhaps it does."
"Did the goose lay golden eggs?" asked Thimula.
"No, that's another story. In this one, the mother sends the lad to market to sell the goose. On his way, the lad inadvertently insults an old witch, and she puts a curse on the goose, so that whoever touches its tail-feathers sticks."
"How very strange!"
Frodo recalled reading this same story as a child, but he sat on the floor with Thimula beside him as he recounted the rest of the tale and turned through the pages to show her the illustrations. As the lad carried the goose to market, he picked up all sorts of people who couldn't resist touching the goose's tail, or who seized their friends in an effort to help them escape and wound up being stuck themselves: a tailor, a pretty girl and her mother, the town's mayor. Eventually, a long train followed the youth, who remained oblivious to the commotion going on behind him. In the end, everyone was freed from the curse in exchange for promises. The simpleton went home with a new suit, bags of gold, a bride, and the Mayor's chain of office. Typical of Lobelia, thought Frodo, to bring her son up on stories of undeserved rewards.
Thimula had been laughing at the absurd tale and the accompanying pictures, when she suddenly stopped and sat bolt upright. "Oh my gracious! The goose!"
"The goose?"
"Auntie had a hideous, huge pottery goose that used to sit on the kitchen cupboard. She brought it back with her from Hardbottle. She once told me that Lotho gave it to her on his birthday. It was hollow inside. The top came off. Frodo, I'm sure that's where she hid her will."
"Where is it now?" Frodo asked.
"I don't know. It disappeared a week or two before she died." Leaving Lotho's room, Thimula went to the kitchen and pointed to an empty space on the top shelf of the cupboard.
Frodo gazed up at the empty spot, and had an idea. "Do you recall when you first noticed the goose had gone?" he asked. "Was it before or after Aunt Lobelia dismissed the cook?"
"The cook?" Thimula echoed. "Before, I think."
"Not long before?"
"I couldn't say. I believe both happened in same week, but I really didn't notice. If I gave the missing goose any thought at the time, it was only that I was happy to see it gone. I'd assumed it must've fallen down and broken into pieces."
"Well, it is possible the cook did break it and Aunt Lobelia dismissed her for that," said Frodo, "but I think that Aunt Lobelia would've had something to say if an object Lotho had given her were broken by a servant. You would've heard quite a lot about it. But the goose disappeared quietly, and the cook departed around the same time. You said last night that she and Aunt Lobelia had been on good terms, and had known each other for years. What if Aunt Lobelia gave it to her? Where she is now, and does she have it with her still?"
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