The four hobbits found their way easily onto the lower roof by going around to the back of the inn and climbing the slope of Bree hill behind the half-buried ground floor, then jumping onto the eaves. Getting onto the stable roof, however, proved a more difficult task. They walked around three sides of the Inn and found no way, north or south, to scale the wall without the use of ropes or a ladder.
With permission from Mr. Butterbur, Frodo obtained a ladder from the stables. They carried it up onto the roof of the back wing above the hobbit rooms and braced it in the angle of the wall by the stairwell, out of sight of the courtyard, then climbed up.
The Prancing Pony was the tallest building in Bree; from its roof, they could see over all the town, and the fields, farms, and trees of Chetwood beyond the Bree Hill. Pim, feeling a little dizzy, had to sit down on the slope of the main roof until her brother teased her, "You'll never marry an acrobat, Pimmy, if you lose your head over heights."
Lest someone be in the rooms below, Frodo crept with careful, hobbit-footed quietness down to the windows, and reached out to pull it toward him. Once it was fully open, he found to was possible to climb around it to get inside the room. It would be even easier if he were taller, or had a rope to tie--there, to the top of the window-frame--and had no fear of falling.
"We heard thumps overhead," he said to his cousins as he clambered back up, and headed toward the front of the inn and the sharper peak of the gable over the room he and Merry shared.
"Do you think this thief was trying to get at us too?" asked Merry as he followed.
"Perhaps so, but our window is far too small," replied Frodo. "A hobbit-child might get in through it, but no one larger. Anyone who tried would have to climb in over us--and no doubt wake us to the danger. Look!" He pointed into the angle where the slopes of the gable and main roof met to form a sort of hollow; here, the slate shingles had grown mossy with dampness, then dried in the summer sun. Boot-prints had crushed this surface. There was also the imprint of a large hand, and a few more odd shapes, as if the person had fallen against the steep incline. "Someone has been up here!"
The Tooks came to see. "Boots!" cried Pim, with some satisfaction. "No hobbits would they wear anything so huge and clumsy as that. And none of our Bigs have boots with such square toes. They've all got pointy toes."
Frodo had noticed this also. Although these prints didn't match the toes of the boots he had found in the square, which were also pointed and considerably smaller, he had seen at least one pair of boots today that resembled these.
"He wasn't headed toward our window," observed Merry, following the signs of someone scrabbling up the surface. "Rather, he was going over the top of the house."
"What's on the other side?" wondered Frodo.
They went to see, following the traces of the boots up and over the peak of the roof to the opposite slope, over the locked storage room. There were three chimneys on the other side of the roof; here, there was only one with a chubby ceramic pot capping it. If they drew near enough to the edge, they could look down onto the roof of the neighboring building, only two stories tall. A mews perhaps ten feet wide separated them. A brave and energetic person might risk jumping across, even at night, but Frodo couldn't imagine anyone without a very tall ladder coming up this way.
"Maybe they used a rope, tied in a loop and tossed up to catch on the chimney," Pippin suggested. He was standing by the chimney as he spoke and, as he placed one hand on the ceramic chimney-pot, accidentally knocked it over. The others reached out to catch it before it rolled off the roof, but it didn't fall far. There was a length of rope inside, one end tied to the grating within, and the other dangled down inside the chimney.
The hobbits swiftly gathered around the chimney and grabbed the rope to haul it up. There was a bundle tied to the end of it, made up of an old cloak with its ends bound together; they set this down on the roof to untie the knot and open it to examine its contents.
"Well, that's it then," said Merry as Frodo compared the items in the bundle with his list of stolen property. "We've found everything that was taken. Now, you only have to find the thief."
"Oh, I know who it is," said Frodo. "I guessed this morning, but I'm certain of it now. What we have to do is catch them out."
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