A Slip Twixt Cup and Lip by Kathryn Ramage

Lady Iris still lay on the bed, but now in the traditional funerary pose, flat on her back with her arms crossed over her breast. Her eyes were shut and her hair had been brushed back into place, away from her face. The pillows beneath her head had been removed, but Mrs. Noakes had set them to one side in a small laundry basket rather than carried them out to be washed. Frodo only gave the body a glance, but Sam paused near the foot of the bed and regarded her solemnly as if he'd come to pay his last respects. Whatever else she might've been, Lady Iris had been kind to Sam when he'd visited Long Cleeve--the only member of the Thain's household who hadn't ignored him or treated him with snobbish disdain.

The shaft of light had moved nearer the wall behind the door. Taking great care, Frodo picked up the cup on the floor between his open palms--one at the base and the other over the top--and held it in the light so Sam could see what he'd observed that morning. "The smaller marks are Lady Iris's prints. Look here, Sam--Do you see how she held the cup in both her hands as she drank?"

Sam, who had come closer to see, nodded and curved both hands as if he held an invisible cup between them in demonstration.

"She didn't touch the handle, nor did her companion. You'll find his fingermarks here--note where they are." Frodo tilted the cup so that a set of larger smudges around and just under the rim caught the light. "That's precisely as I saw them this morning, and it drew my attention. He picked this cup up from over the top. He didn't drink from it. He couldn't have, with his hand placed so."

"But you guessed that already. This was her cup." Sam turned to find the other cup on the table. "That's his, over there. He didn't drink much of it."

"He passed this one to her." They went over to the table. Frodo set down the cup he was holding and, taking care not to smudge the fingermarks nor spill the tea still inside, picked up the other one in the same manner. "Now see: he held his own cup in one hand. But look! She held this cup too. Her smaller fingerprints are there, just as they were on her own cup."

Sam looked puzzled. "She drank from both?"

Frodo set the cup down. "It is curious, isn't it?" He leaned down over both cups to have a closer look at the inside of each. Both Iris and Florisel appeared to have liked a lot of honey with their tea, for there was a thick layer of sweetly scented golden goo at the bottom of both cups. The honey left in Lady Iris's looked a little darker, but that could be because it had dried, while the honey in Florisel's cup had been soaking in the remains of his tea overnight. He was tempted to try a sip of the tea to see if he could taste anything odd, but knew that Sam would knock the cup from his hand before letting him drink anything that might be poisoned. In any case, he suspected that all that honey would conceal any bitter taste. He sniffed both cups, but detected no strong smell of pipeweed in either--no stronger than the incipient smell that lingered in the room, for Florisel and previous guests must have smoked their pipes in here many times. The teapot showed no signs of having anything but tea leaves in it, and Lady Iris's delicate fingermarks were visible on the lid.

But there was one other clue they hadn't examined, that little vial Mrs. Noakes had found. Frodo took it out of his pocket now and held it up to the light. A multitude of fingermarks covering and smudging each other were visible on the dark glass, and with Sam peering at them over his shoulder, Frodo tried to sort them out.

"These little fingermarks might be Lady Iris's or Mrs. Noakes. No- here are the innkeeper's wife's. They're a big larger than her ladyship's but smaller than these others."

"Mr. Pumble-Took's?" guessed Sam.

"I think not. Her husband's. Mr. Noakes has a distinctive scar on his index finger. It shows plainly here, over the other print-marks--he held it there when he gave it to me. If Florisel Pumble-Took touched this vial, I don't see where his fingers were. I'd say that these marks tell us a most interesting tale, Sam." But he saw that Sam didn't see the same story in the fingerprints that he did. Neither had Mr. Noakes or Mr. Horrocks. "Well, we must wait to hear what Mr. Pumble-Took has to say, when they find him, to see if I'm right." They left the room, shutting the door behind them.

As they walked down the corridor to Frodo's room, he continued, "Until then, we have a little time to spend by ourselves. I didn't invite you to come to Budgeford to help me with an investigation, Sam, if you recall." They were now in his room; he went to his friend's arms for a kiss, but he had more than comfort on his mind. "Did you bring the- ah- items I asked you to?"

"There're in my bag--" Sam looked down to find the bag lying on the floor near the wardrobe, where he'd left it on their way to Lady Iris's room. "Now? Before lunch?"

"No," Frodo laughed. "Let's have lunch first. You've had a long ride, and must be hungry. But right afterwards..."
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