The next morning, Frodo saw Sam off from the inn stable-yard. Merry and Pippin had decamped a half-hour earlier without farewells. There were few words between them, for their night and morning together had left them both ill at ease; Frodo simply wished his friend luck and watched Sam ride out.
"You'll be staying with us awhile longer, Mr. Baggins?" Mr. Bloomer asked Frodo when he re-entered the inn through the side door between the kitchen and the front hall.
"Yes, certainly," Frodo assured him. "The task that brought me here isn't finished yet, though I expect it will be in a matter of days."
"When Mr. Gamgee comes back?"
"Yes, I hope so. I've sent him on an errand. He'll return when- if- he finds what I've sent him after."
"What's that?" the innkeeper asked with increasing interest. "You think the folk that hung up Malbo are far away from Gamwich?" Like Sherriff Punbry, he sounded rather hopeful and very pleased that Frodo was looking beyond their neighborhood, and neighbors, for suspects.
"I think that the answer to this problem lies elsewhere," Frodo replied circumspectly. "You've no reason to worry for Ham Gamgee."
"I never worried for 'm, Mr. Baggins!"
This interested Frodo. "You didn't know about his fight with Malbo?"
Mr. Bloomer shrugged. "I heard tell of it the morning afterwards from Mose and Maisie."
"Did your son and daughter tell you what the fight was about?"
The innkeeper shook his head. "Games, or some such. There was quarrels here over games every other week with that Malbo about. They didn't all mean murder."
Frodo wasn't entirely certain that the innkeeper was as ignorant of the matter as he seemed, but he did believe that it wasn't Ham whom Mr. Bloomer was worried about. "This one wasn't over gaming, Mr. Bloomer," he said. "It was over Maisie."
"Maisie?" Mr. Bloomer's face went red. "My Maisie?"
"None other. Malbo had been paying improper attentions to her, and Ham defended her."
"Did he now?" In spite of his indignation, Mr. Bloomer seemed pleased to hear this.
"Maisie never told you?"
"She did not. Never a word- Maisie!" He turned from Frodo and shouted down the other hallway, "Maisie-lass! Where are you?"
His daughter emerged from the private dining-room, which she had been cleaning up after Frodo's and Sam's breakfast. "Here, Dad. What is it?"
"You never told me that that Malbo was making himself a nuisance to you."
"There wasn't no need to," she responded. "I could look after myself with him."
"Then what's this about Hamson Gamgee a-fighting him for your sake?"
Maisie blushed and cast a sullen glare at Frodo. "I never asked him to. It wasn't half so much as everybody makes it to be--if Malbo Glossum hadn't been killed right afterwards, nobody'd think a thing of it at all." She turned to address Frodo. "And if you're thinking Ham Gamgee went and hanged Malbo over me, Mr. Baggins, you're wronger'n you know. He'd no part in it." After a moment of angry thought, she added, "If you want to look at somebody, look at that Petula Applegrove."
"Miss Petula?" her father echoed, and Frodo was likewise surprised.
"That's right," said the girl. "What was she doing out so late in the town on the night Malbo was last here--by herself, and later'n she should be? It's near two miles to the orchard. That's a long way to go at such an hour. Whyn't you ask her that, Mr. Baggins, and see what story she has to tell?"
"Maisie, are you quite sure? How do you know this?" Frodo asked her.
"I saw her myself, standing over by the well across the way," she waved an arm in the general direction. "When I went to light the lamp at the front door. It wasn't long after dark, before Malbo went out to be killed. I know the look of her--hair all done up in ribbons even when there isn't a party. Now why'd she draw back as if to hide behind the trees when I came out? If she was here after her brother, why didn't she come across and say so, even if she thinks she's too fine to step foot in a public inn? Her and that sister of hers give themselves such airs, like proper ladies born when they aren't no more'n farm-lasses and no better'n us."
Frodo could hear the scorn in her voice for the Applegrove sisters. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"I didn't like to say so, but I'd rather you think it's her that knows what happened to Malbo instead of Ham Gamgee," she answered. "If you ask me, she was there waiting for Malbo that night. He went chasing after her too, and I'll wager she let herself get caught!" With this, she swept out, returning to her work in the dining-room. Frodo followed her.
"I said all I had to, Mr. Baggins," Maisie told him as she briskly swept the crumbs off the cleared table.
"No," replied Frodo, "there's one more thing to be said. Are you sweet on Ham Gamgee?"
"What's that got to do with it?" she asked back. "I don't like to see him unjustly blamed for sommat he didn't do, that's all."
"Is it?" Frodo had his doubts. "Even so, may I give you some advice? If I know my Gamgees, Ham won't begin anything. That's their way. For all their bluff heartiness, they're really very shy and don't see their own worth. If you do care for him, you'll have to take the lead and go after him rather than wait for him to come to you."
Maisie did not appear eager to take this advice. "Thank you very much, Mr. Baggins," she said with a quick, bobbed curtsey and a hint of sarcasm. "If I was sweet on Ham Gamgee, like you say, and was going a-chasing after him, I'm sure I'd do it just that way. But as I'm not, you can't make me say I am!"
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