"So it was right where you dreamt it would be!" Merry said when he came up to the citadel after Frodo and heard the news. "That night you walked in your sleep, you had your hand upon the rock--exactly where the body was found!"
"Actually, it was a bit higher up behind the rock, higher than I could reach," said Frodo. "It was lying at the top of a stair on the other side."
"Close enough. You knew it was there. I'll wager that's just what the poor old ghost has been trying to tell someone for all these years."
"Beregond is having his guardsmen bear the body from the tunnel with all due care and regard," Faramir told the hobbits. "It will be laid to rest properly in an honored place among the Houses of the Dead in Rath Dinen. I wish we had a name to put upon the tomb. Who was this Elf? Why did he come to the city, and how did he come to be murdered, for murder it must've been."
"Yes, I wonder who put that knife into him too," said Merry, then turned to his cousin. "Maybe that's why the ghost appeared to you, Frodo. He knew what a great detective you are, and knew that if anybody could solve his murder, you could!"
"Faramir didn't think this was a mystery I could solve," Frodo laughed in reply, knowing his cousin was mostly joking. But, at the same time, he was intrigued at the idea.
"I didn't mean to cast doubt upon your abilities, Frodo," Faramir apologized. "I know as well as anyone in Minas Tirith your merit as an investigator. But this seems to me a most difficult subject for investigation. We know nothing about this Elf--who he was, how long ago he was slain, or who might have sought his death. All who could have answered your questions have been dead countless centuries. You're more than welcome to try and find out what you can. Perhaps, at the least, you'll discover his name."
The next day, the bones of the unnamed Elf were reverently placed in a tomb in the royal mausoleum in the Silent Street after a small funeral ceremony attended by the King and members of his court. The remnants of the cloak, armor, and other items found with the body were retained by Captain Beregond in hopes of eventually identifying their owner. The armor was examined by Aragorn, who said that it was not the type of armor worn by Elves during the Last Alliance--samples of this were still kept in Rivendell--but of a somewhat more recent period, perhaps five hundred or a thousand years later. Since the chest of the body had been protected by a breastplate, and the point of the knife blade found within the ribs lay toward the front, it seemed likely that the victim had been stabbed in the back. The corroded blade was of Man-made steel and had once had a wooden hilt, although little remained of it.
The other object of remark found upon the body was a brooch pinned as a clasp on the remnants of the cloak. This was an oval wrought of mithril with a large green gem set at the center.
That night, Frodo had another dream. He stood again on the front step of Gandalf's house and looked down into an empty, silent street swathed in white mists. As before, a figure emerged from the tunnel and came swiftly toward him. As the figure drew near, Frodo expected it to stop, but the tall, gray-cloaked shape swept past him without pausing. It did not turn and head for the wall, as before, but went on up the steep slope of the street.
Frodo leapt down the steps and followed the figure past the houses of the oldest noble families of the city--not abandoned and in need of repair, as so many were these days, but with their facades fresh and the lights of candles flickering behind the mullioned windows.
They passed beneath the archway that passed under a guards' watch-station on the westward wall above them; beyond this was only the end of the street and the locked gate that led to Rath Dinen. Here, the Elf turned suddenly and said, "Why do you follow me tonight?"
Frodo stopped in his tracks several feet from the Elf. Fierce, bright eyes fixed him, and he could see the Elf's face--ivory in the moonlight, but not a mask. There was life and animation in the features, even a small, wry and tolerant smile that told him the intrusion was not entirely resented. "I want to know who you are," he answered. "Can you tell me, please, who killed you? What is it you want of me?"
The Elf's smile grew wider and made his face surprisingly beautiful. "Do you think this is your errand? Will you safeguard me to my destination, when I alone am summoned?"
Frodo didn't know how to answer these peculiar questions. He could only stare up mutely into those bright, amused eyes, until he heard another voice close behind him:
"Frodo-?"
He turned. He was awake now, standing in the middle of a clear and quiet night street. Merry was running to catch up with him.
Frodo turned back to the passage beneath the archway; no one was there. "Did you see it?" he asked.
"I saw nothing--only you, going up the street." Merry took his arm. "You've got to stop running all over the city in your nightshirt, Frodo. You'll catch cold, and the neighbors will talk."
"The neighbors are asleep. It's past midnight." He looked at the ancient houses that lined the western side of the street, all dark and several of them empty and falling into decay.
"Was it the ghost again?" asked Merry.
"Yes. He's not at rest after all." Arm in arm, they began to walk back down toward Gandalf's house. "Perhaps you're right, Merry, and he wants me to find out how he died."
"Did he tell you so?"
"No, he hardly said anything, and little that made sense." In fact, Frodo wondered now if the ghost had been speaking to him at all. Or had those odd questions been addressed to someone else, someone the Elf had met on that long-ago day of his death, when the houses on this street were all occupied? Perhaps he'd been speaking to his murderer.
Frodo also realized that the Elf hadn't been wearing the brooch that had been found with the body. He tried to remember if he'd seen it in his previous dream, but didn't recall.
Merry laughed. "They never do say anything helpful, do they? It'd be much easier if a ghost would only appear and say, 'So-and-so murdered me. Avenge my death!' instead of making you guess."
"Well, I can't avenge anything," Frodo answered. "It all happened hundreds of years ago. Unless he was killed by another Elf, the murderer is long dead too."
"But you are going to try to find out, aren't you?" asked Merry. "I could see it in your eyes, when Faramir spoke of it today."
"I've done it before--you remember."
"The Lady Aredhel in the old story? Yes, I remember."
"She'd been dead much longer than this Elf could possibly be, and I found out who killed her just by reading a few books. Maybe I won't find the answer this time, but it's a puzzle I can't resist looking into. And if the ghost really is asking for my help, I don't see how I can refuse."
They went into the house and to Frodo's room. Frodo climbed up into bed. Before Merry joined him, he took the belt from his dressing gown.
"I remember that when you looked into that other Elf's death, you went running around Bag End at night, when you ought to've been in bed then too," he said. "Investigate all you like, and I'll help you, but that's not going to happen this time."
Merry scrambled up onto the bed to tie one end of the cord to the bedpost; after pinning his cousin, who lay supine, by throwing a leg over his waist and sitting on him, he tied the other end of the cord around Frodo's left wrist.
"I can untie that easily, Merry," said Frodo.
"When you're awake, yes. The point is to keep you from walking in your sleep. What if you took a dangerous tumble down the stairs the next time you went for a midnight stroll? If you fell and broke your head open, everyone would say it was my fault for not watching over you carefully enough." Merry still sat astride Frodo; when he finished double-knotting the cord around his wrist, he leaned down to kiss his mouth. "If that ghost-Elf wants to pop into your dreams and tell you who killed him, he'll have to come here to do it."
Frodo smiled. "Let's hope he doesn't come again tonight." The sensation of Merry's weight on him and thighs pressed to either side of his waist was rather stimulating. He began to wriggle and buck his hips slightly, teasingly, not enough to toss Merry off, but enough to throw him off balance and make him grab hold of the front of Frodo's nightshirt.
"Stop it, Frodo!" Merry said with a laugh. "If you don't behave yourself, I might have to stay on you all night."
"You can certainly try," Frodo rejoined and bucked his hips again, which provoked another laugh. As Merry leaned down to kiss him, Frodo tried to put his hand on his cousin's curls--when he felt a sudden yank at his wrist as the cord was pulled taut.
Merry looked up to find Frodo's hand suspended a few inches from his head. "Do you want me to untie that?"
"No..." said Frodo, testing the restraint. "Let's leave it."
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