After Frodo, then Merry, had gone, Pim and Pippin remained in the little dining parlor even though they'd finished eating and the table had been cleared.
"Will you tell me one thing, Pip?" Pim asked once she and her brother were alone. "Have you quarreled with Merry? You were so eager to go when you promised Aunt Esme you'd find Merry and bring him home--I saw how badly you wanted to find him yourself. I thought you'd be happy when you were together again, but you aren't. You used to be such friends, always laughing together. You barely spoke a word to him over breakfast. What's happened, Pip? I wondered last night, when you came to sleep downstairs and left Merry upstairs sleeping with Frodo."
"I left them to sleep together because that's what they've been doing," Pippin answered. "They don't want me in their way."
It took Pim a moment to understand what he was saying, then her eyes went wide. "Merry and Frodo? But when? How?"
"While they were away. It was bound to happen sooner or later."
"But I thought Merry was in love with you. Isn't that what all that fuss was about?"
"He says he's letting me go for my own good, so I can get married if I want to."
"Doesn't he know that your match with that little Diamond Took didn't come off as planned?"
"Yes, he's heard. Frodo told him all about it, and the other Di too, and how I said I'd wait for him to come back."
"Well then!"
Pippin sighed. "Waiting wasn't what I should've done."
"And so he's taken up with Frodo?" This was the part Pim found most hard to believe. "I had no idea Frodo was like you and Merry--although there was that friend of his who lives at Bag End now. I guess it is something all boys do, isn't it?" She laughed. "What a surprise for the Brandybucks when Merry gets home! They're afraid he'll go back to seeing you again, just as before."
Her brother shook his head miserably. "No chance of that."
Pim reached out to place a sympathetic hand on his arm. Pippin was about to tell her what he'd decided to do, when his sister turned in her chair, and noticed that was going on in the courtyard outside the parlor windows: Frodo was talking with several members of the troupe--holding, of all things, a pair of polka-dot pantaloons--when two Big men came out through one of the side doors of the Inn and pushed in among the group, shouting and shoving the circus folk out of the way as they headed for the waggon.
"Pip, look! Whatever's happening?"
They went out to see.
The Sarty brothers had sat upstairs in Butterbur's private parlor above the kitchens, observing the goings-on in the courtyard for as long as they could bear. Now, they'd come down to confront the supposed thieves.
"We know you took our things. We want them back!" the younger brother, Torven, shouted as the pair shoved their way through the gathered members of the circus troupe, which consisted mainly of women and children, many of them hobbits. There were other Big men among the group, the joungler Joffey and the dog-master Willowbright, but the Sarties were both large and broad-shouldered, and spoiling for a fight. When the dog-master tried to intervene, he received an elbow in the chest and was knocked to the ground.
"Give it back!" the elder brother, Nikal, insisted. "We don't care about the rest of it."
As the two headed for the waggon, Mr. Grimmold stepped up boldly to block their way. "We don't have what was stolen from you," he told them. "The thieves you're looking for aren't among us."
"The innkeeper's already searched the circus caravan and baggage," Frodo added. "He found nothing."
"No, nor would he," Torven retorted, glaring down at the small circus manager. "They're conjurers, aren't they? They could hide things in places we'd never find."
This same idea had occurred to Frodo. Pippin had once shown him some very clever tricks Mr. Grimmold had taught him, including how to make coins disappear inside a little wooden box with hidden compartments; larger trick-boxes could be made to conceal other items as effectively. But even when he'd been most suspicious of the troupe, he wasn't going to tear their waggon apart to search it. This was, he feared, just what the Sarty brothers intended.
"I know how we can find the hiding places, Tor. Let's start with this!" Nikal Sarty had reached the waggon and seized Mr. Grimmold's magic lantern, a heavy ironwork object with multiple apertures and frames of painted glass. Mr. Grimmold cried out and rushed forward to rescue his most valued possession. He grabbed the young man by the trouser leg, but Nikal kicked him back, and lifted the lantern above his head to smash it down on the cobbles and see what was inside.
It was Mr. Willowbright's ten-year-old daughter Kestrel who saved the day. While kneeling to help her father, she shouted to the dogs, "Hoy, wee ones, up you go!" just as she did when assisting him during a performance, and set the whole yipping pack upon the pair. At a few terse commands, the dogs quickly circled the Sarty brothers and danced up on their hind legs to paw at their knees and tangle underfoot, fixing them where they stood. The largest hound put its paws on Nikal's chest to pin him to the side of the waggon. Little Linden Trufoot scrambled up onto the steps of the waggon and, when Nikal lowered his upraised arm, snatched the lantern away.
Mr. Grimmold joined the young hobbit to collect his property before it could be damaged. "I'll take that, thank you, my lad," he said, then turned to scold the pinned Nikal. "I know you've had a shock, but that's no excuse for such bad behavior. Bullying people smaller than yourselves--you ought to be ashamed! My lamp had nothing to do with your misfortunes, and I daresay it's worth more than all you have and whatever you've lost."
Frodo realized that this was true. From his list of stolen items, he knew the Sarties had lost a purse containing a few copper and silver coins, and the pins from their cloaks. They weren't wealthy men--rather, they appeared to be farm-lads--but would they make such a scene over so little? Demanding their money returned would be reasonable, but this assault was not. For them to be this upset, Frodo suspected that the two brothers had lost something of greater value that they hadn't told him about.
Hearing the commotion, Mr. Butterbur came out. "There's always one thing and another to drive a man to the edge of his wits in the keeping of an inn, but it's never like this, not in an ordinary day!" he lamented, seeing this latest calamity. "I knew there'd be worse if you lot stayed on," he said to Mr. Grimmold, "but I can't see you off 'til this is settled one way or 'tother. Was there ever such a muddle? Now, let's have no more of this rough-house," he scolded the Sarty brothers next. "I don't want to bring the constable in, for them nor for you, not if it can't be helped. It does an inn no good to be called a place where troubles gather. You lads settle yourselves. Come have a pint, on the house, as it were, and leave Mr. Baggins to do his work. He'll find your things, you may be sure!" He gave the hobbit a meaningful look, silently pleading with Frodo to do so as quickly as possible. And, taking each of the Sarties by an elbow, he escorted them back into the Inn.
After the innkeeper had bustled the Sarties indoors, Frodo went over to Mr. Grimmold, who was sitting on the steps of the waggon, hugging the magic lantern to himself like a rescued child. This incident had shaken him severely. "You see, Mr. Baggins? That's the sort of treatment we can expect, if your investigation turns up that the Trufoots did steal from those clod-thumpers. It may be for the best if we leave Bree and don't return for awhile."
"Where will you go?" Frodo asked.
"Even before this accusation blighted us, I was think of taking my people to Minas Tirith for the winter," Mr. Grimmold replied thoughtfully. "We have a new audience there, a city full of generous people who haven't seen all our tricks yet. It's a long journey, but we could take the Greenway south and stop to have a show or two at the villages along the way. Young Mr. Took was telling me last night about the land of the horse riders," he nodded to indicate Pim and Pippin, who had come out in the midst of the excitement. "He said we might go through that kingdom, and find new friends there."
"Moondancer would be the biggest sensation," Pippin added, overhearing this last part. "They love anything to do with horses, and the king is a friend of ours."
"Then that's what we'll do," the circus manager decided. "If what you've found is any sign, Mr. Baggins, then our good innkeeper was right in his suspicions to begin with."
"Don't give up hope yet," Frodo told him, then turned to his cousins. "Where's Merry?" A small smile flickered on Pim's lips at the innocuous question.
"He's probably gone looking for you," said Pippin.
They stepped a few feet away from the caravan. "What did Mr. Grimmold mean?" Pim asked softly. "What did you find, Frodo?"
Frodo still held the scrap of cloth in his hand, and showed it to her. Both Tooks were distressed when they learned where Frodo had found it, and whose clothes it had been torn from.
"But it can't be Campion!" Pim insisted. "Pippin-" She looked to her brother.
"He didn't leave our room last night, Frodo--I'll swear to it," Pippin agreed.
"He didn't need to go past you and out the door, Pip." Frodo pointed at the low windows of the bedrooms on the ground floor. "Anybody could go in and out that way. If you were asleep, you would never have heard."
"But you told Mr. Grimmold not to give up hope," Pim said, and looked very hopeful herself.
"I have my doubts that Campion, or anybody else, scaled that wall," Frodo admitted. "Miss Trufoot claims that her brother tore his trousers at yesterday's performance. If so, we can find the proof of it. But before we go out to look, there are one or two questions I want answered. First, I want a word with those two-" He turned to glance at the door beside the kitchens, which Mr. Butterbur had taken the Sarties in through. "And I want to know more about the dwarves."
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