The next morning, they went with Robin to visit the young couple who lived in the burgled cottage, Florabel and Jaro Fairbairns. The cottage was an old place in the classic hobbit-style--that is, designed to look like a smial burrowed into a hill--and the neat garden of tall rose bushes and ancient apple trees around and atop it was so well grown that the rounded hump of earth might be taken for a natural hillock.
Mr. Fairbairns was a sturdy youth near Frodo's own age, and his wife was a pretty girl with fair curls in ribbons. Frodo was not previously acquainted with the young couple, and they looked a little confused when Sherriff Smallburrows returned to their door with two strangers.
"This is Mr. Frodo Baggins," Robin made the introduction, "and my friend, Sam Gamgee, who works for him."
"I've heard of a Baggins who lives in the splendid house under the Hill. But you're not a sherriff, are you?" asked Jaro after greetings had been exchanged. He looked rather doubtful of it, since Frodo obviously appeared to be a gentlehobbit, and the Bagginses were well-known around Hobbiton as a family of some prominence.
"He's a private investigator," Robin explained. "I've asked him to look into the trouble you've been having."
The Fairbairns were suitably impressed; they had never seen a private investigator before. "Can you help us, Mr. Baggins?" Florabel asked. "Has the sherriff told you what happened?"
"Yes, in part," Frodo replied. "But I'd like you to hear more about it from you."
"There isn't much we can tell you," said Jaro. "We'd been asked to tea yesterday with an auntie of Flora's who's been out of this part of this Shire for years--she's visiting another aunt who lives near Bywater. We started to walk and had gotten about half a mile, when Flora realized she'd forgot the basket of tartlets she'd baked and promised to bring her aunts, so we had to go back to get it."
"But that turned out to be a lucky thing," said Florabel. "When we came in the door, we saw at once that someone had been in the cottage while we were out. That chest there-" she pointed to a tall walnut chest of drawers against the sitting-room wall beside the hearth- "was pulled out into the room, and the rugs here and in the front hall had been thrown back from the floor."
"The kitchen table had been moved too," her husband added.
"And the funny thing is that it's happened before," said Florabel.
"You didn't say so yesterday, Ma'am," Robin chided.
"My husband and I were talking it over last night, and... well..." she glanced at Jaro. "We didn't realize it at the time. If I saw that the wardrobe in our bedroom had been moved from its place, I didn't think it very odd. I assumed that Jaro must have had a reason for doing it. And he thought I had done it."
"We didn't think anything of such peculiar incidents until yesterday," Jaro finished. "It was hard not to see that something was going on when we weren't home once we came back unexpectedly and surprised whoever it was. There was no mistaking it then!"
"You didn't see who it was?" asked Frodo.
The young hobbit shook his head. "I told the shirriff here--they must have fled out the back door as we came in at the front. I went after them, but never saw anyone."
"And nothing was taken?" asked Frodo.
Both shook their heads. "Nothing we've missed," said Jaro.
Frodo had to agree that this sounded very odd indeed. "May I ask, Mr. and Mrs. Fairbairns: how long have you lived here?"
"Only three months," Florabel answered. "Uncle Bardo let us have it just after we were married."
"Bardo Taggart," her husband explained. "The cottage belongs to him."
"And how long have these odd incidents been happening?" Frodo asked.
"Since last week," said Florabel. "At least, that's the first time I can recall something being moved. The cottage used to belong to Uncle Bardo's mother, who died last year." She let out a nervous little laugh. "I know you'll think it silly of me, but I've sometimes wondered if we weren't being haunted by Granny Julilla's ghost!"
When they left the Fairbairns' cottage, Frodo suggested that they pay a call on Bardo Taggart, who lived just down the lane in a larger and grander smial. The three were shown to the parlor, where Mr. Taggart, a prosperous-looking hobbit in his sixties, was seated with an equally prosperous-looking lady whom Frodo assumed was his wife, until Mr. Taggart introduced her as his sister, Mrs. Garnetta Broadbelt.
Once Frodo had explained what brought them, Mr. Taggart nodded solemnly. "Yes... Jaro brought me the news of this odd business last night," he said. "Nettie and I were just talking about it. It sounds most peculiar."
"I've heard of you and your investigating ways from an acquaintance of mine, Lobelia Sackville-Baggins," said Mrs. Broadbelt. "She has quite a lot to say about you poking into other people's affairs, and none of it good." As Frodo's heart sank in dismay, she smiled and added, "But I never take Lobelia at her word. I believe we are connected by marriage, Mr. Baggins. Our sister Ruby is married to Wilgo Chubb--a cousin of yours?"
Frodo nodded. "I know Wilgo and Ruby well." Wilgo was a distant cousin, but Frodo knew that he and his wife lived near Bywater. He also wondered if Ruby was the aunt that Florabel and Jaro had been going to visit.
This slight family connection seemed to be sufficient for Mr. Taggart to invite Frodo and his companions to be seated and ask how he could be of assistance to them.
"I'd like to find out more about that cottage, Mr. Taggart," Frodo began as he took a seat by the elder pair; Sam and Robin hung back shyly near the door, Robin twisting his cap in his hands. "The Fairbairns tell me that it's your property, and that it used to belong to your mother?"
"Yes, that's right," said Mr. Taggart. "The cottage was Mother's house. She and our father lived there when they first married. Father had this bigger smial burrowed out for her when we were children, but I think Mother always preferred her old, little home. After Father died, she didn't want to stay on here with me, nor would she go to live with Nettie or Ruby. She went back to her old cottage, and there she stayed 'til she passed away last summer."
"Did she live there alone?" Frodo asked.
"She was near enough that we could keep an eye on her," said Mrs. Broadbelt, "and she had her maid, Dilly, to look after her. Dilly took care of Mother when she was a girl, before she was married, and looked after us when we were children. She never left Mother's side until the day she died."
"After Mother's death, the cottage sat empty for months, until young Florrie married," her brother added. "I offered it to her and her husband as a honeymoon home."
"Did anything odd like this happen when your mother lived there?"
"No..." Bardo glanced significantly at his sister, who nodded.
"It's the jewelry," she said. "I've always said it was still in that cottage!"
"Jewelry?" said Robin, suddenly alert. "What jewelry is this, Ma'am?"
"Mother's," Mrs. Broadbelt said, then explained in more detail primarily to Frodo: "She had some lovely pieces. There were pearl earrings, broaches, a pair of golden combs, and a famous emerald necklace set in dwarf-wrought gold that was worth more than all the rest together. You can see it, there." She pointed to the wall beside the door, where a small, oval portrait of an elderly hobbit-lady wearing a velvet dress and a magnificent collar of green stones was hung. Robin turned to examine it more closely. "It was her prized possession. It'd been in Mother's family for generations, before hobbits ever came to the Shire, and has always been passed down from daughter to daughter. As I was her eldest daughter, it should have to come to me on her death."
The door opened and another lady and girl of about twenty came into the room. "Bardo, dear-" the lady began, then stopped. "Oh, I beg your pardon. I didn't realize we had visitors." She looked at Sam, then Robin. "The sherriff is here?"
"Have you come about the burglary at Florrie's?" the girl asked excitedly.
"Now, it wasn't a burglary, Meddy," said Bardo. "Nothing was taken."
"Only because the burglars were interrupted," his wife replied. "Such things shouldn't be allowed in the Shire! It makes one feel quite unsafe, and something ought to be done about it."
"We'll do our best to put a stop to it, Ma'am," Robin assured her deferentially. "That's why I've brought Mr. Baggins here."
"Mr. Baggins..?" Mrs. Taggart looked confused, until her eyes fell upon the young hobbit seated near Mrs. Broadbelt.
"He's going to look into this matter for us, my dear," her husband explained. "Mr. Baggins, this is my wife, Glora, and our daughter, Medora." After the proper courtesies had been exchanged, Bardo went on, "Nettie and I were just telling them about Mother's missing jewelry. They may have something to do with this odd business at the cottage."
"You said that your mother meant to give her emerald necklace to her daughter," Frodo reminded them.
"Yes, that's right," said Bardo. "Mother had made out a list of what pieces were to be given to whom. The necklace, of course, was to go to Nettie, the earrings to Ruby, the combs to Opal, and other, lesser pieces were meant for Medora and my sisters' girls."
"From eldest daughter to eldest daughter, it always was," Mrs. Broadbelt repeated, "but since I have no daughter, Mother thought it more fair to divide her jewels between all the daughters and granddaughters of the family."
"Mother Taggart was even kind enough to mention my niece Florrie," said Mrs. Taggart.
"Even though the girl was no relation to her," added Mrs. Broadbelt, "except by marriage."
Mrs. Taggart gave her sister-in-law a sharp look, and Frodo was afraid that the two ladies were going to quarrel.
"But the jewels was never given to anybody," said Sam, rescuing the situation. "What happened to them?"
"Well, you know the way of old ladies," said Mr. Taggart. "In her last days, Mother grew rather scatter-brained and began to worry about her jewels being stolen. We think that she must have hidden them away someplace safe, but she never told us where. Perhaps she forgot. We went through her things after her funeral, searched all over the cottage, but never found the jewelry box. That was well over a year ago."
When Frodo and his companions left the Taggart house, Mrs. Broadbelt exited with them.
"Your aunt Lobelia has no kind words for you, Mr. Baggins," she told Frodo once they were outside, "especially since this awful scandal concerning her son and that poor farm-girl. But for all her harsh words, she's told me some quite interesting things about you--and I've heard a bit from others as well. You're the adopted heir of that peculiar old Baggins who disappeared a few years ago. They say you take after him: you're an intelligent lad, but just as peculiar as he was. You've gone on adventures yourself. Perhaps that sort of peculiarity is just what a good investigator needs to do his work. It requires a keen imagination--which is a quality I'm sorry to say more respectable hobbits usually lack. You'll find Mother's jewelry, won't you?"
"Yes, if I can," Frodo answered, "but the difficulties the Fairbairns have been subjected to at their cottage may have nothing to do with your Mother's missing jewels. It may be a separate piece of mischief entirely."
"Oh, pshaw!" Mrs. Broadbelt dismissed this suggestion. "It's all one and the same. Find out who's plaguing Florrie and Jaro, and I've no doubt you'll find out what Mother did with her jewels. I always said that they must still be somewhere in that cottage, and you'll see in the end that I'm right!"
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