Tricks and Thefts at the Prancing Pony by Kathryn Ramage

When Merry returned to the Prancing Pony, he was surprised to see his three cousins standing in the square before the inn, gathered around a tall wooden pole and peering up at it as if there were something fascinating on top.

When Frodo noticed him, he smiled. "Ah, Merry--good! I wondered where you'd gone. We may need your help if we're to reach the top of this thing."

"Why do you want to do that?" Merry looked up, but didn't see anything particularly interesting. This pole, and its twin on the opposite side of the square, were normally used to support lanterns when there were events on the square during the night; the rope the Trufoot brothers had strung between them to perform their tight-rope walking tricks had been taken down, but there were two large, up-curving iron hooks like horns jutting from either side, seven feet up.

Pim explained it to him. "So you see, if Larkspur's telling the truth, Campion's trousers must've been torn here and we ought to see some sign of it."

"Only we can't," said Pippin.

"Somebody must have taken it and put it where Frodo found it," said his sister, and looked to Frodo for confirmation.

Frodo, thinking the same thing, was no longer gazing upwards, but studying the soft earth around them. There were plenty of bare hobbit footprints, his own size and smaller, and one or two Big Folk's boot-prints. "Hullo--what's this?" He spotted an odd pair of triangular shapes a few inches from the base of the pole, as if someone had stood on tiptoe...

He turned his gaze to the hooks at the top of the pole again. If Campion had torn his pantaloons here, it must have been on the iron-work; the wood was rough, but Frodo saw no splinters or nails to catch clothing on. The hooks were well out of hobbit-reach, but a Big man of approximately six feet tall shouldn't have to stand on tip-toe to reach them.

"How do Fergold and Cam get all the way up there?" Pippin wondered.

"The rest of the family makes a sort of hobbit-tower, standing on each others' backs and shoulders, and then they toss the lads up," said Pim.

"We'll have to build a hobbit-tower of our own," said Frodo, "but you won't have to toss me. I only want a closer look at those hooks."

"That shouldn't be any trouble," said Pim. "You're so skinny for a hobbit, Frodo, you must be light as a feather."

They tried it: Merry and Pippin crouched side by side, bent down so that Pim could stand on their backs. All three held onto the pole to brace themselves and keep their balance, letting go only briefly to help Frodo climb up to stand on the sturdy girl's shoulders. Once there, he was close enough to the iron hooks to examine them.

There were many wispy, straw-like fragments of hemp from the rope that had been knotted around the pole above and around the hooks. When Frodo put out a hand to grasp one of the hooks to steady himself, he found that it was a little loose and came away from the pole slightly, exposing a half-inch or so of the thick-headed nail that fixed it in place. He pushed it close against the pole, and the head of the nail, which had been flush in its hole in the iron-work, popped out. It was there Frodo found what he was looking for: a few bright and colorful threads had been pinched and caught.

"Found it!" he announced as he extracted the threads with his fingernails, then jumped down.

"That proves Larkspur was telling the truth!" cried Pim as she climbed down off her brother's and cousin's backs and came over to see what Frodo had discovered. "Campion's trousers were torn here, and not on that window."

"It's possible he could have torn them twice," said Frodo. "Here, and later on in the night, but that seems a bit much."

"You don't believe he did?" she asked eagerly. "You said so before, but you really don't now?"

"No, as a matter of fact, I don't. There's too much that's peculiar about this theft. It doesn't make any sense for it be anyone in the troupe. Pippin, tell Pim and Merry what the dwarves told you."

Pippin was rubbing the place on his back where his sister had been standing and swinging the arm on that side. "What? Oh, Garfi and Fordis. They said that they were talking with those other dwarves staying at the Pony last night. They--the other dwarves, I mean--told them that they'd come from the Blue Mountains and are on their way east. They didn't come right out and say they've got a lot of jewels with them--being dwarves, they wouldn't, you know--but Garfi says they hinted at it and he's sure it's so."

"There!" said Frodo. "Jewels, and they weren't stolen last night."

"How you know that?" asked Merry.

"Because I saw how the dwarves responded this morning when I told them of the thefts on the floor above them: they rushed to check their own baggage and be sure that nothing was taken, and they were assured of it. They were quite relieved. I guessed they must have something of great value with them. Gold, mithril, or precious gems seemed most likely, and I asked Pippin to ask. Now, tell me--" Frodo looked from one cousin to another, "why on earth would any sensible burglar go to the trouble of scaling a thirty-foot wall to steal a few inexpensive trinkets and coins when a treasure perhaps a hundred times greater was just below and in easier reach?"

"Maybe the burglar didn't know about it," said Merry.

"That," Frodo agreed, "or it wasn't possible for them to get at the dwarves' rooms even if they'd guessed what they were carrying."

"But why not?" wondered Pippin. "If they could climb to the top floor, why not to the one below?"

"I don't believe anybody climbed that wall at all."

Merry grinned. "You've got an idea, haven't you, Frodo?"

"I have," Frodo admitted. "I think the thief came in from the roof. Remember the noises we heard last night?"

"That thumping that woke us?" Merry brightened. "Someone was walking on the roof over our bed?"

That little smile flickered over Pim's face again, and Pippin ducked his head at this talk of Frodo and Merry in bed, but neither noticed. They had turned their attention to the facade of the inn behind them, and the gabled roof of the wing above the stables.

"Let's see if we can get up onto the roof ourselves," said Frodo.
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