Fatty, Merry, and Pippin began looking for Val Stillwaters by visiting the places Fatty thought he was most likely to be. They went to the stables where Val kept several ponies for racing, then tried the taproom of the Beeshive Tavern in Whitfurrows and some of the smaller pubs in and around the town. They started off by buying a half-pint in each place to avoid looking suspicious, but grew dangerously wobbly by mid-afternoon. On the road east toward the Brandywine Bridge, they stopped to lie down in a meadow for awhile before going on to their last destination.
"We can't go on like this for the rest of the day," Pippin giggled as he flopped down into the tall grass. "We'll be falling-over drunk by the time we find 'm!"
"How many more places are we going to try?" Merry sat down with his back against a tree and asked Fatty, who was sitting nearby with his head in his arms.
It was a moment before Fatty replied, "One or two more. There's a little pub, not far from the Bridge, I thought we'd try next." He lifted his head. "Is this what all Frodo's investigations are like?"
"For our part, yes," said Merry. "We go riding all about the Shire, looking for people, hiding in the underbrush to follow 'em, hanging about pubs to pick up gossip-"
"Lots of pubs!" Pippin added with a laugh.
Fatty shook his head. "It's awful wearying work. I don't mind giving Frodo a hand, but I'd like it better if this detecting meant sitting in my study, smoking a good pipe and thinking things over."
His cousins burst into riotous laughter. "That's Frodo's job!" said Pippin as he struggled to sit upright. "When it's your investigation, Fatty, you can do that too, and send all your friends and relatives running about on errands."
They were still laughing when a rider came up the road toward them from Whitfurrows, a hobbit in a bright red-and-gold striped waistcoat. Fatty's eyes went wide at the sight. "It's him! Get down!" And he flung himself into the grass, shoving Pippin down beside him.
Merry crouched low behind his tree, and watched as Val rode past. "Where's he going to?"
"Probably to that pub I was telling you about," said Fatty. "It's where the farmlads from the Bridgefields gather at the day's end. It's a famous place for dicing. The farmers won't be in at this time of day, but I know Val goes there now 'n' again."
Pippin, muffled under Fatty's outstretched arm across his face, had begun to yelp, "Get off! Get off!" until Fatty moved and let him up. Once Val had gone out of sight down the road, the trio fetched their ponies from the meadow and went after him. As they approached the little pub, which lay some way off the road, they saw Val hadn't gone there at all. He was standing on the Bridge itself, leaning on the railing and looking down into the broad sweep of ale-brown water. Even at several hundred yards' distance, his colorful waistcoat was conspicuous among the brown leather coats of the bridgemen and the worn tweeds of the old gaffers who had gathered to fish in from the river.
"Val, hullo!" As the three drew nearer the Bridge, Fatty shouted.
Val looked up, surprised. "Fredegar Bolger? What brings you out this way?"
"I wondered the same about you, Val! We were just going to pop in over yonder." Fatty waved in the direction of the pub, just visible through the trees. They were close enough now that there was no longer a need to shout. "Won't you join us in a half-pint? I believe you know my cousins."
"I know Merry Brandybuck, of course," Val said pleasantly, and nodded to him in greeting. "And you're the Took lad, aren't you? Peregrin?" Then, as he considered the trio, his expression grew less pleasant. "You're all related to Mr. Baggins, the investigator, aren't you?"
"Well, yes," said Pippin, "to one degree or another."
"I daresay half the gentlehobbits in the Shire can say the same," added Fatty. "You might say so yourself, Val. Your mother's a Goldworthy, after all, and they've married into the Brandybucks..." This venture into genealogy trailed off as Val's eyes grew wider and his face suddenly turned very pale.
"Here-" as his gaze flitted quickly from Pippin to Merry to Fatty and back again, his voice shook. "Here- Have you been following me? Has Mr. Baggins sent the lot of you after me?"
"Val, no-"
"Then why are you here?"
"I'm showing Pip and Merry the best places to have a drink and a bit of fun-" Fatty tried to offer the explanation he and the others had agreed upon before they'd set out in search of Val.
"I mean--why have they come here to Budgeford, now?" Val asked. "You're here because he asked you. It isn't enough that I have to endure this gossip, and let investigators pry into my private affairs, I must be spied upon too! It really is the limit! What's Mr. Baggins after? I know he doesn't believe Cammie's only gone away. Does he suspect me of making away with her, or something equally monstrous?"
"Of course not!" Fatty exclaimed, horrified at the idea.
"I want you to tell Mr. Baggins something for me." Val's voice was still quavering with emotion. "Tell him that just before Camellia left, she spoke of visiting a friend of hers, Angelica Whitfoot--another cousin of his! If he wishes to find Cammie, I suggest he begin his search there!"
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