After Peony had gone, Frodo went outside and sat on the bench in the garden. Her visit had only increased those tickles of suspicion that he'd begun to feel yesterday; he could not dismiss them now that he knew someone else--someone much closer to Milo--was thinking the same thing.
Milo and Peony were not his nearest relations, but they had always been kind to him, and he liked them. He hated to hurt them. He hoped they would forgive him for what he had to do, but he couldn't rest until he'd discovered the truth: What did Milo know about Lotho's disappearance?
Who could he turn to for an answer but Milo himself?
He rose from the bench and left Bag End, walking swiftly down the hill and along the lane toward the Old Place. If he was going to speak to Milo, he wanted to do it right away, before Peony was there and made it impossible for him to have a private conversation with Milo, and before Sam came home and tried to stop him from 'running about.'
When he arrived at the Old Place, Angelica answered the door. "Aunt Dora's napping," she said tersely, as if she hoped to dismiss him. "Can you come back later?"
But Frodo would not be turned away. "I don't wish to disturb Aunt Dora," he told her. "It was Milo I wanted to see. Is he in?"
"Uncle Milo's about somewhere." One of the little Burrowses was playing quietly in the yard. "Mosco?" Angelica called to him. "Where's your father?"
"He's gone to the stable to see the new pony."
"Go and fetch him, will you? Tell him Frodo's here." After the child had scampered off, she turned back to the visitor and offered, "Come in, Frodo. You can wait in the parlor."
In the parlor, Frodo took the same overstuffed chair by the fire. Instead of leaving him to wait alone, Angelica sat down across from him and stared at him. Her cheeks were very pink. Frodo wondered if she was angry that he had come back again, and if she intended to carry on the way she had behaved to him yesterday.
To his surprise, she said, "I was awful the last time you were here, Frodo. I'm sorry if I embarrassed you. I only wanted to make Aunt Dora stop going on about what a catch you'd be as a husband when she knows I want to marry Lad Whitfoot. She isn't so bad to live with most of the time, but when she starts talking about you, it's all I can do to keep from packing my things to go home."
"It's all right," Frodo accepted her apology graciously. "But who told you about that- ah- rumor?"
"Lad did. He's not happy with how Aunt Dora's been pushing you either. He can be horribly jealous--why, he got into a fight with Lotho over me just last week!" Angelica sounded rather pleased about this. "But when I told him that you were coming to tea, Lad laughed and said I had no reason to fret. You wouldn't marry anybody. He'd heard a story that's been going around about you and your gardener. Lad thought it was only a good joke. I don't think he believed it, but I wondered if it wasn't the truth."
"You believed it?"
"Well, it is true, isn't it?" his cousin asked back. "You're like Pippin and Merry?"
"Um- yes," Frodo admitted.
Angelica nodded. "I thought so. I knew how you never looked at girls. You never looked at me."
Frodo thought this was rather vain of her, but he admitted that she had a point. He couldn't help being aware that he was considered one of the most eligible young bachelors around Hobbiton; a good many mothers and aunties must see him as a 'catch' for their girls--and yet the girls themselves never seemed very eager to catch him. Even if they were too innocent to understand why, perhaps, like Angelica, they sensed that he had no interest in them.
"Then, when you brought Sam Gamgee here to tea, I was sure I was right," Angelica concluded. "But I only said what I did because I'm sick to death of hearing of what a dear boy you are, how rich, how nice-looking, how much in need of a good wife to manage you..."
"And Aunt Dora knew you'd be a managing sort of wife," Frodo teased.
"Lad needs more managing than you do," Angelica retorted in the same spirit. "I think I can make something of him. I will marry him once I'm of age this October. I'd do it now, only Mother and Father won't give me permission. They want me to stay here as long as I can and look after Aunt Dora, in hopes that she'll name me as her heir. I suppose they think I can do better than Lad too. Well, I don't care about the house. Aunt Dora can leave it to whoever she likes. Lad's father will give us some nice cottage around Michel Delving once we're married.
"I'm sure you're nice enough, Frodo--much nicer than Lotho! If I had to choose between you and him, I'd take you. But as long as I'm allowed to make up my own mind, I'd much rather marry someone who thinks the world of me, whether anybody else approves it or not."
"So would I," said Frodo.
Angelica smiled at him. "Then I hope you're very happy. I intend to be."
The door opened and they both looked up as Milo came into the parlor.
"Frodo," he said, regarding his visitor expressionlessly. "I can't say I'm surprised to see you. Will you excuse us, please, Angelica? Frodo and I have some- ah- business to discuss."
"Yes, of course, Uncle Milo," Angelica replied, confused by her uncle's odd behavior, but she rose to leave them alone. "Goodbye, Frodo. I'm glad we had this chance to talk."
As soon as he was certain that Angelica had gone out of hearing, Milo whirled and said, "Come to ask me more questions, you nosy, wretched little beast?"
Frodo was too startled by this venomous hiss to reply; he was almost afraid that Milo would strike him, or else seize him by the coat-lapels and haul him up for a ferocious shaking. He'd never seen Milo so furious before. Before he could think of what to say, Milo went on:
"Your spies, Pip and Merry, were at the stables before I arrived, or so the groom informs me. They were asking questions about a pony I've purchased--where it came from. You're looking into everybody's business, aren't you lads? If I'd any idea what you were up to, I would never have asked them to join me and Lad at the Dragon, or invited you here." Milo's voice was quavering with anger and, more than that, fear. "I've always been decent to you, haven't I? Why are you hounding me? What is it you're after, Frodo?"
"I told you yesterday: I'm trying to find out where Lotho went," Frodo answered quietly.
"And what does that have to do with me?"
"I don't know. Why don't you tell me?"
"Why don't I-?" Milo echoed. "What?" His face, already flushed, turned a darker red. "Are you suggesting that I've done away with Lotho?" he asked hoarsely.
"No, not exactly, but I know you're hiding something. I don't want to believe the worst of you, Milo. Neither does Peony."
"Peony?"
"Peony visited me today," Frodo told him. "She wants me to stop prying too. She was trying to convince me, and perhaps herself, that you had nothing to do with Lotho's disappearance, but she didn't succeed either way. She's afraid for you, but she wouldn't tell me why. I want you to. Milo, what is it you've done that's frightened her so badly? Why are you so afraid?"
Milo stared at him, and the red slowly drained from his face. He fumbled for the pipe in his coat pocket, took it out, and lit it with shaking hands, forgetting that Dora had forbidden smoking in her house.
"You comfortably wealthy little beggars," he said after a minute. "Boys like you, Lad, Merry and Pip--You've never known what it is not to have enough money, have you? You don't even consider it. You'd toss away a fortune without a moment's thought, and laugh as if it didn't matter. You don't have a wife and children depending on you to look after them."
Frodo did not say that he had gone penniless for months on his quest, lived half-starved and in rags, and been in places where money would be no use at all. He couldn't tell Milo that he knew what it was to be utterly without comfort--Milo wouldn't believe it, nor be able to understand it. "But you were left well enough off," he said instead. "And Peony's got her own money."
"That's been eaten up. Peony's money too. She said it was mine as well as hers. She shouldn't have been so generous. It's nearly been the ruin of us both."
"Where did it go?"
"I lost it," Milo replied bitterly. "It's all my fault. I'd made too many foolish wagers. I lost quite a lot last year on a pony I bought for the races--I even lost the pony in the end, but I can't be too sorry about that. Peony's been terribly good about it, even when we had to shut up our cottage and come here and live on Aunt Dora's kindness."
Frodo had never taken much interest in pony races or other games of chance, but he'd seen enough of the keen players to know that, while the common folk squabbled enthusiastically over every penny wagered regardless of whether they won or lost, it was considered unseemly for well-bred hobbits to care how much they gambled away. Gently bred hobbits were not supposed to think about their money. When Milo spoke of comfortably wealthy young hobbits who tossed away a fortune without a thought, Frodo believed he was recalling his own more carefree and reckless past; he could imagine Milo losing his fortune little by little with such an affected air of indifference, and then finding himself in deep trouble as he began to lose more than he could afford.
"It's taken the burden off us considerably, living here," Milo went on. "We don't have the expenses we used to, keeping our own home, but I still owe a great deal of money."
"To Lotho?"
"Oh, I never made wagers with him. Lotho's no gambler. But when this business with that blasted piece of farmland started, he bought up some of my debts, then he came here to see Peony." Milo scowled darkly. "He held my debts over her. He promised he'd rip them up if she'd hand over the land he was after. If she agreed, her brothers would follow her lead to keep the scandal quiet. None of the family has been very pleased with me lately, but they'd do all they could to keep Peony from being publicly shamed.
"Peony, bless her, wouldn't agree to it. She told him 'No,' in no uncertain terms and showed him out the door. When I came in that evening, she told me what Lotho had said. Well, that was the final straw. I'd had my fill of Lotho and his scheming. I wouldn't mind coming to a pleasant agreement to get rid of my debts, but for him to come here in that low, underhanded way--and make threats to Peony! That was more than I could bear. I went tearing off to find him. When I looked in at the Green Dragon, I saw there was some excitement going on. The farmlads had just thrown out some brawler."
"Lotho?" Frodo guessed. "He'd just had his fight with Lad?"
"Yes, that's right," said Milo. "I wasn't there to see it, but Lad told me what'd happened. He told me how Lotho had spoken slightingly of Angelica."
"Did you get into a fight, Milo? That same night?"
Milo hesitated, then nodded. "After I spoke to Lad, I knew that Lotho couldn't have gone far. I went looking 'round the Dragon, and found him sitting by the well in that grove on the hills behind. I thought I'd better deal with him there, in private. You can see why, can't you? He'd badgered my wife, and then he insulted my niece! I'd be a coward if I didn't defend them. I demanded an apology, but Lotho wouldn't take it back. He laughed and said that as long as he held my debts, Peony and I would have to do as he wanted. Well, there's only so much a decent hobbit can put up with. Before I knew what I was doing, I swung my fist and hit him in the jaw as hard as I could. I knocked him down. While he was lying sprawled on the grass, I told him he'd get his money as soon as I could pay him, but if he ever bothered any of my family again, I'd give him a worse beating. He wasn't laughing anymore, but crept away like a whipped dog--I thought he'd gone home to sulk and nurse his wounds.
"I worried afterwards that he might seek revenge in some ugly, hateful way, but Peony and I never heard another word from him. I wonder if he didn't leave Hobbiton that same night." Milo chuckled dismally. "When I first heard that he'd gone away, I was relieved. I thought our troubles with him were over. It wasn't until Sherriff Smallburrows came to talk to Peony and me about our quarrel with Lotho that I saw the worse trouble I was in. We agreed not to say anything about Lotho's last visit to her."
"Did you tell Peony you'd fought with him?" asked Frodo.
"No, but she must've seen how mussed I was when I came home that night. My hand was bleeding. She must have thought..." Milo's eyes went wide. "Oh, the poor darling! She must've imagined the worst. Wives will do that--You'll see for yourself if ever you marry, Frodo. And all this time, she's been afraid of what I'd done. I should have told her, but at the time I thought it best not to. I've heard since that Lotho'd been quarreling all over Hobbiton, but as far as I know, I'm the only one who actually struck him. Even if he'd run off with his Daisy, it didn't look good for me."
"Do you think that's really what's happened to him, Milo?"
"I don't know..." Milo said faintly, and shook his head. "Frodo, I swear I don't. I sincerely hope that he's gone off with that girl of his, and this mess will resolve itself before the accusations start flying." He regarded the younger hobbit seated before him warily. "What are you going to do?"
"Nothing," said Frodo.
"Nothing?" Milo echoed incredulously. "You aren't going to fly to the shirriffs and tell them what I've just told you?"
"No. Why should I? It doesn't answer their question, or mine." Frodo looked up to meet his cousin's eyes. "I believe you, Milo, when you say that you don't know where Lotho is. And you're quite right: the rest of it is none of my business. I don't wish to make things awkward for you or Peony by spreading tales around."
Milo was still staring at him. "I must admit I'm relieved to hear you say it, after all the trouble you took to dig my secrets out. You and the lads had me more frightened than the sherriffs did! You won't tell anybody--not even your spies?"
"Oh, them!" Frodo laughed. "I'll have to say something to call them off." He wondered what Merry and Pippin could have been doing at the stable.
Milo nodded and accepted this. "You're an odd little hobbit, Frodo Baggins. Most peculiar."
"So I've been told."
Once he left Milo, Frodo hurried home, hoping to be back at Bag End before his friends returned. But as he came around the curve of the hill, he saw to his dismay that they were already there, gathered outside the front door to wait for him.
As he went up the steps, Sam came forward anxiously. "Frodo, where've you been?"
"Sam, please don't fuss. I'm fine. I had to go to the Old Place to speak to Milo-"
"Didn't you hear?" asked Pippin.
"Hear what?" As Frodo looked from one to the other in confusion, he felt a chill run up his spine. "What's happened?"
"It was all over the Bywater market today," Sam told him.
"And in Hobbiton too," said Pippin. "There's been a body found up by Needlehole."
"Lotho-?"
Merry shook his head. "No, not Lotho."
"It's Daisy Puddlesby," said Sam. "They found her this morning lying under a hedgerow in one of the lanes near her family farm. She's been strangled."
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