In the morning, they located Robin Smallburrows and went back to the Fairbairns' cottage. Florabel welcomed them in and asked if they'd gotten very far with the problem.
"We've made some interesting progress, Mrs. Fairbairns," Frodo told her. "I've come to ask you and your husband a few more questions. I hope you'll forgive me if them seem a little odd."
"I'll forgive anything that will clear this puzzle up," Florabel assured him. "What is it you want to know, Mr. Baggins?"
"Is this furniture yours, or was it here when you moved in?"
"Most of it's ours," she answered. "It was given to me or to Jaro by our families when we married."
"What about the late Mrs. Taggart's things? Do you know where they've gone?"
"Uncle Bardo took his mother's things away long before we moved in here. He's got some of her furniture at his house now, and Aunt Nettie has the rest."
"Do you mind if we shift one or two pieces of furniture now?" Frodo requested. "I believe you said that this chest of drawers had been pulled away from the wall?"
"Yes, that's right." If Florabel did find this request strange, she had had enough strangeness in her life of late not to protest, but gave her consent for the chest to be moved again. Since Sam wouldn't dream of letting Frodo move furniture, he and Robin did the shifting. Jaro came in while the two were working and demanded to know what was going on, but once the situation had been explained to him, he also gave a hand.
When the chest of drawers had been pulled about two feet away from the wall, Frodo slipped into the gap to examine the wall behind it.
"There are several marks here in the plaster," he reported to his eagerly awaiting audience, and ran his fingertips over a series of deep little dents. "Here--do you see? It looks as if someone's been knocking on the wall with a stick or the tip of an umbrella. Were these marks here when you moved in?"
"I didn't notice," said Jaro, looked to his wife.
"Nor did I--but it don't think it likely," she added. "Uncle Bardo had the entire cottage plastered and painted afresh just before we came. Everything looked quite new. You couldn't even see where the old pictures had been hung."
They pushed the chest of drawers back into place and, at Frodo's direction, moved a few other pieces of furniture to find similar marks. There were also some interesting scratches on the planks of the floors beneath the rugs and on flagstones of the kitchen hearth, as if someone had tried to pry them up.
"But what does it mean?" asked Robin, utterly baffled.
Frodo had an idea, but he wanted to keep it to himself for the present, until he had more proof. "Mr. and Mrs. Fairbairns, I have one last odd request to make. Do either of your parents live nearby? Would it be possible for you to visit them for a few days?"
This was by far the strangest thing he had asked of the young couple, but his detective skills had so impressed them that they were willing to do it. "We can stay with my mother for a day or two," Florabel said. "She lives only a few miles away."
"And will you inform your uncle that you're leaving? He'll understand the reason why--you can't bear staying on in this cottage any longer with the possibility of intruders breaking in."
"Shall I tell Mother that?" Florabel asked. "She hasn't heard a word of this yet, and I don't wish to frighten her."
"You needn't do that. Tell her..." Frodo smiled. "Tell her it's a problem with rats."
While Florabel sent a message to her mother and packed their bags, Jaro walked over to Mr. Taggart's house to tell him that they were going. Frodo went with him to ask Miss Medora a few questions. When they returned to the cottage, Florabel was ready to go.
"Mother says that she'll be pleased to have us visit," she reported. "You'll look after the cottage while we're gone, won't you, Mr. Baggins?"
"The cottage must look unoccupied, but at least one of us--Shirriff Smallburrows, Mr. Gamgee, or myself--will be here at all times," Frodo promised her.
"And this matter will be straightened out when we come back?"
"Yes, that's my hope," said Frodo. "I mean to lay a trap for the culprits. If I'm successful, this mystery will be cleared up within a few days, and you won't be troubled again. I'll be able to explain everything to you then."
"We'll look very much forward to it!" Jaro exclaimed.
After the young couple had gone, Frodo remained to keep watch at the cottage while Sam went back to Bag End to pack a few necessaries. Robin went on his usual rounds, but promised to return when he was finished.
The afternoon passed uneventfully. Sam grumbled a bit at dinner-time that he was unable to prepare a hot meal; a fire in the kitchen--and smoke from the chimney--would betray the fact that someone was at home. He had brought a basket full of bread and cheese and some cold meat pies from the larder at Bag End, and they dined off of these in the fading evening light.
"I thought as we might get some apples from the trees outside," he told Frodo over dinner, "but I've had a look at 'em, and they're all withered up. A hundred years old at least! One of 'em's patched up from a great crack in the trunk." Sam shook his head sadly; he did not like to see damaged plants. "It've been better cut down and a new tree planted. There's not a fit piece of fruit to be found on any of the branches--naught but hard little crabs."
"You might take it up with Mr. Taggart when this business is finished," Frodo replied. "The family seems so ready to follow the advice of a professional investigator, I'm sure they'll be just as happy to have a good gardener's advice."
Robin returned at twilight, having forgone his regular visit to the Green Dragon. The party settled down in the darkness of the parlor, with the curtains drawn over the windows and no fire or candles lit.
"How d'you know they'll come tonight, Mr. Baggins?" Robin asked in a whisper.
"It might not be tonight," Frodo whispered in reply. "The news that the Fairbairns have left might not have reached them yet. But if they don't come tonight, it must be tomorrow or the next day." He peeked out through a gap in the curtains into the dark garden. "It can't be much longer than that."
"Why not, Mr. Baggins?" Robin asked him.
Frodo turned back from the window. "You know all that I do about this puzzle. You've seen much of it for yourselves, and I've told you and Sam what happened during my visit to the Chubbs' house. Can you figure it out?"
"Well... I've been puzzling it over in my mind," Sam answered, "and I think I've worked out a thing or two."
"I haven't," Robin declared. "I wish you'd tell us what this is about, Mr. Baggins. It's not the young lads, Mr. Wilcome and Mr. Sancho, is it?" he asked, reluctant to give his own pet theory up.
"No, Sherriff, but it was seeing my cousin Sancho at the Chubbs' that made me see it all clearly. You remember Sancho, Sam?"
"'Course I remember!" Sam huffed. "You mean, when you and Mr. Merry caught him knocking holes in the walls at Bag End to find Mr. Bilbo's dragon-gold."
"That's right," said Frodo.
"You mean they were shifting the furniture to get at the walls?" Robin asked eagerly. "The jewels are hidden somewhere in the walls?"
"Yes, exactly. At least, that's what our attempted thieves believe."
"Thieves? There's more'n one?"
"There must be at least two," Frodo replied. "You and Sam shifted that big chest of drawers--could one person do it alone?"
"It wouldn't be easy," Robin agreed. "But if it's not the lads, who is it-?" He stopped suddenly at a sound just outside the cottage.
The trio sat very still, listening to the creak as one of the bedroom windows was forced open, and the rustle of cloth as more than one person climbed in. They heard whispered voices, and the soft padding of feet. Then, there was a sharp scraping sound as some heavy piece of furniture was moved across the wooden floor. Loud taps on the floor soon followed.
"Let's go," Frodo whispered to his companions, and they rose and crept silently down the hall toward the master bedroom. The door was open. As they stood in the doorway, Sam lit a match and held it aloft to reveal the culprits.
Pola and Pella Windle stood frozen in the middle of the room, dazzled by the sudden flare of light. They had dragged the bed into the middle of the room. Their mother knelt in the spot where the bed had been, holding an umbrella ferrule in one hand to try and pry up the floorboards with it.
At the sight of the trio in the doorway, Mrs. Windle cried out, "Fly, my girls!" Her daughters, spurred to action, fled for the open window. Robin went after them, but the sherriff's path was blocked by the bed, and the girls had scrambled out the window before he could stop them.
The two girls flew across the garden, where they ran straight into Mrs. Broadbelt, who was waiting in the shadows of the tall rose bushes. She grabbed Pella and held the squirming girl by one arm; Pola went on a few more steps before she realized that her aunt also had her by the skirts, then she too stopped.
Sam helped Mrs. Windle to her feet and accompanied the lady to the window. At the sight of her sister, Mrs. Broadbelt smiled. "Why, Opal," she said dryly. "I understood you to say you would never come by this old place again."
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