Sam had finished his errands in the Bywater market; his shopping basket was full and he had given orders to various shopkeepers for larger items to be delivered to Bag End. He was intending to go home, when he spotted Ted Sandyman coming out of the mill. While Sam would prefer not to speak to Ted if he could avoid it, he felt obligated to give his questioning of the miller's son a second try, since his first attempt had failed so badly. Setting his jaw determinedly, he headed toward the mill.
"Well, if it isn't Sherriff Samwise Gamgee!" Ted called out derisively as Sam approached. "Solved your crime yet, have you, Sam? Found out who's done away with Lotho?"
"No," Sam retorted. "You sure you didn't pop him into your grinding-mills, Ted?"
Ted laughed. "Is that what you think I've done?"
"No," Sam answered. They were only a few feet apart now, and he lowered his voice to speak more seriously. "I don't think he's dead at all. I think he's run off. It's like I told you, I'm looking into it on Mr. Frodo's behalf. As long Mr. Lotho comes back in the end, I don't care where he was or what he was up to. 'Til he does, a lot of good folk are under suspicion--and you too, Ted." Ted gulped hard at this, and Sam pushed on; if appeals didn't work, then perhaps a threat would. "Now whyn't you do the sensible thing and answer a question or two, unless you've got something to hide?"
Ted's face flushed. "I'm not hiding anything--you can't say I am! I told Sherriff Smallburrows the truth!"
"Then why don't you tell me? It's a bit early for lunch, but the Ivy Bush is just across the way." Sam inclined his head in the direction of the inn on the far side of the market square. "My treat," he offered grudgingly.
The Ivy Bush Inn was busiest on market days, for many hobbits who lived away from the center of Bywater stopped to have lunch there rather than interrupt their shopping with a long walk home. Since it was a pleasant spring day, tables and benches were placed in the stone-paved courtyard between the two curved wings of the long, low building. Even though it was early, it was already crowded, but Sam and Ted found a table tucked in at the back--as private a seat as could be managed in so public a place. Sam ordered pork pies, an apple tart, and enough of the inn's ale to loosen Ted's tongue.
"Now, what was this business you were getting into with Mr. Lotho?" he asked after they had settled down. "Did you cheat him?"
"I wasn't cheating him!" Ted insisted fiercely. "No one can say I did--not you, not him, and not the sherriffs! It was Lotho who came to me. He knew how I wanted to expand on the mill, make it bigger, put in more grinding-wheels. He said he'd help me to do it." Sam looked alarmed at the idea, and Ted grinned. "It sounded pretty good to me! You want to know what happened, Sam? I'll tell you, and I'll tell you what I didn't tell Sherriff Smallburrows. Lotho Sackville-Baggins is the only hobbit hereabouts with the sense to see what sort of progress can be made with more machines and a bit of order. He used sit with me at the Green Dragon and talk about how the Shire needed putting to rights. He'd say how there was a lot of old rot that ought to be cleared away--old houses knocked down and new buildings put up, old trees chopped down for lumber, and empty fields put to better use. He said the smartest people ought to be at the top, running things, instead of some useless fat Mayor at Michel Delving and your 'fine' families like the Brandybucks and Tooks, who're no better than the rest of us in spite of their fancy names. Oh, don't look so shocked, Sam Gamgee. If you weren't so soft, you'd want it that way yourself. You're not so simple as you're made out to be. You could have a place at the top if you'd a mind to."
"I'm happy as I am," said Sam, horrified at the things he was hearing.
"You could have that pretty gent of yours, just as you like, and no one to say he's above you."
Sam did not respond to this taunt, but he couldn't help blushing. "You was telling me about what Lotho said," he prompted. "What's all this fol-de-rol got to do with the mill?"
"Lotho said he thought I was one of the smart ones," Ted replied with a note of self-satisfaction, "and he would help me get up a step or two better. He said he'd made some good money in selling pipeweed outside the Shire, and he wanted to put it into the mill on the promise that he'd have his share of the profits. We'd be partners."
"But you didn't get to do it. What happened?" asked Sam.
"I couldn't get my dad to agree to it. When I told him about Lotho's offer, Dad said there wasn't any need. I'd done enough expanding and there wasn't any more corn that needed grinding. I'd have to wait 'til the mill was mine to do as I liked. So that was the end of that!" Ted sounded deeply disappointed, but Sam silently blessed old Miller Sandyman.
"But I take it Mr. Lotho didn't give up so easily?" he asked.
"No. He tried to buy the mill off of Dad, and when Dad wouldn't hear of it, Lotho said I should've tried harder to win 'm over. I wasn't keeping up my side of the bargain. We'd only had a handshake on it, but he said I'd broken our contract and cheated him. He said I was a fool, and was making the worst mistake of my life in not coming along with him. Well, maybe he was right about that, but what could I do? In any case, Lotho's had his revenge. One of our grindstones was carried off."
Sam remembered Ted standing on the platform above the huge gears and frowning down into the grinding box. "How d'you know it was him?"
"It must've been," Ted answered. "I can't think why anybody would want to steal such a thing, except out of spite."
Sam rose from his seat, leaving his lunch unfinished; he was eager to get away from Ted now that he'd learned what he needed to. But even before he could make a farewell or find some excuse to leave, he heard the sounds of a sudden commotion in the marketplace.
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