Once the last guest had gone, Isalda sat down on one of the garden benches and sighed deeply in relief. "I was afraid this was going to be awful. I don't like suspecting our friends, but they didn't guess they were suspected--thank goodness!--even though we pried and pumped them so shamelessly."
Dodi and Ilbie were not present, and had presumably gone into the cottage. Estella, feeling tired, had likewise gone inside. The rest of the group remained in the garden as the shadows grew long and the air began to cool with the sunset, and they told Frodo what they'd learned through their prying and pumping.
Celie's friends had been more forthcoming with Frodo's cousins than they had been with him. Speculation about whom Celie would marry now that she was free of Merimas ran rampant. Everyone assumed that it would be one of their own circle. The Marishe sisters favored Oleander over Hyacinth, but the married ladies said that this was because the Marishes preferred Hy for themselves--to be specific, for Violetta--and could afford to be more generous with Oleander since he had never shown much interest in them.
Pippin laughed when he heard this. "Oh, they won't catch Hy that easily!" Merry gave him an odd look.
Neither unmarried boy had given his opinion on the question, but the other lads thought that Marly had the best chance of marrying into the Brandybucks, since he was a Brandybuck himself, if he would be bold enough to take it. One wag suggested that Master Merry could quash all scandals and find two ready-made heirs if he married his young cousin. Everyone agreed that no matter whom Celie chose, he would be a better husband than the one she had lost.
They were all aware of Merimas's treatment of Celie; they had witnessed the dancing incident in this same garden last week and had been talking about it amongst themselves since. All the girls said Celie had confided to them about even more awful incidents that had occurred in private, which confirmed Frodo's idea that she had told them enough to guess even if she hadn't revealed the whole truth.
"Which one do you think did it, Frodo?" Pippin asked.
"It's difficult to see any of them as a brutal killer," Frodo admitted. "They look like an entirely unsuspicious lot. They all seem fond of Celie, and none of them liked the way Merimas behaved to her."
"Nobody did," said Merry. "You didn't and neither did I, but we wouldn't have broken his head in for it."
"No, nor would most of her friends," agreed Frodo. "But somebody must have felt particularly strongly about it if they'd struck Merimas down."
Had someone killed Merimas for Celie's sake? At present, that was the most likely theory. Frodo considered his suspects in this light.
Dodi and Ilbie were protectively devoted to their little sister and would surely have hated Merimas if they'd known the worst of how he'd treated her. That they hadn't known about his accusations concerning Berry was a point in their favor--Frodo felt sure one or the other would have given himself away by now if they had. Also, they had had little opportunity to do anything on that fatal night, even allowing for the ten or fifteen minutes they'd been smoking here in the garden or Ilbie's walk home. It was possible that one or both might have gone out later in the night to kill Merimas, but how would they know where to find him, when nobody had seen where he'd gone?
What about Marleduc, who looked to be in love with Celie whether or not she knew it? In spite of his protests that she considered him merely a friend, many of their mutual friends seemed to think he was a good candidate for becoming her next husband. Or could it be one of the other lads he had met today? Oleander Woodbury and Hyacinth Bunce appeared to be silly and harmless boys. One of them might end up marrying Celie after a suitable period had lapsed, but could they have killed her existing husband for the privilege? Or could one of them have done it as a chivalric gesture to rescue the girl from her unhappy marriage?
What of Celie's other friends, who had no romantic interest in her but also saw how unhappy Merimas made her? Amarilla, for example, obviously disliked Merimas as much as he had disapproved of her; she might have thought that he stood in the way of Celie growing into the sort of woman she ought to be. Amarilla was trying to be an older sister to Celie, a role Mentha had also assumed... and Frodo knew well what Mentha had done to defend a younger sister. Would Amarilla do the same?
As much as he would like to believe that Darco Underhaye had somehow been involved because of his connection to Berry, and because Darco had been rude to him, Frodo couldn't find a plausible reason for him to kill Merimas. Unless he was lying, Darco hadn't even known Merimas nor seen Celie since she was a child. But what, he wondered, had Amarilla meant by her cousin being 'unforgiving' of slights?
Might Celie have done it herself? She had been out that evening; he and Merry had heard her shout Merimas's name before he'd gone past Crickhollow's gate, and Ilbie had seen her return to her own cottage later on. She said she'd turned back right away rather than leave her children alone for long, but what if she had gone after her husband to continue their quarrel and things had turned violent? It was an unpleasant thought, but Frodo knew he had to consider it as he would consider every other possibility.
He asked the others about the story Eliduc had told him regarding Merimas and 'a girl or two who could tell a tale.' Had any of them heard similar gossip? As a group, they were shocked at the idea. Merimas? Impossible! He was the most rigidly respectable Brandybuck of the last three generations.
Then Melly said, "I've never heard of any scandal connected with my brother, but now that you speak of it, Frodo, I remember when Mother and Aunt Hilda first made the match between him and Celie. Merimas was reluctant. I thought that there was someone else he wanted to marry instead of Celie. It's only an impression I had. He didn't actually tell me so. He never spoke a name. But I wonder if he didn't resent Celie because of it."
"Can I ask?" Frodo looked at his cousins seated around him; he was glad that Celie was gone and her brothers weren't present, for it was very delicate question. "It's something I've often wondered about. We were away, Merry, Pippin, and I, when Celie and Merimas were wed. As I've heard the story, when Celie started to grow up and take an interest in boys, everyone was anxious to see her married before she went too far with one of them and there was a public disgrace. I've heard stories about her and Berry especially. But when they chose a husband for her, the aunties picked Merimas."
"Yes, that's right," answered Melly. "They thought he'd steady her."
"But why not choose Berilac, if he and Celie were- ah- headed for scandal together? He wasn't already betrothed to Mentha, was he?"
"No," said Melly, "that was later. Berry took up with my sister after Celie's and Merimas's wedding."
"Then why? Was there something against him?"
"I thought that Father and Uncle Merry and the aunties all had the highest opinion of Berry as the perfect example of a well-behaved hobbit-lad," Merry agreed dryly. "They didn't learn what he was really like until after he was dead, and- um- the truth had to come out." He looked in Melly's direction, and she nodded.
"They did think so," said Fatty, and laughed. "You've got it backwards, Frodo. I wasn't here to see everything that went on, but I sat with Uncles Merry and Saradoc in the study once or twice and listened to them discuss it. It wasn't the aunties who objected to Berry. It was Uncle Merry who wouldn't hear of a match. He thought Celie was too scatter-brained and flighty to be a fit wife for his son. He wanted someone more sensible for Berry--he was the one to push for the match with Mentha. Berry was never keen on the idea himself, but he cosseted up to Mentha to make her fall in love with him, and went chasing other girls all the while, and we know how badly that ended. It might've turned out better if Celie had married Berry. They might all be alive now, Merimas included."
"Do you think that has something to do with this, Fatty?" asked Frodo.
"I don't know, but you obviously think it does," Fatty replied. "Why take so much interest in Berry otherwise?"
"It's just that his name has come up so often since Merimas was killed," Frodo explained. "If anybody's haunting us, it's Berry, not Merimas." The ladies shuddered, and Pippin looked at the dark shapes of the rose bushes around the garden as if he expected to see Berry's ghost among them. "Perhaps it's only a coincidence. A violent death in the family naturally reminds everyone of the last time something similar happened. But I can't help feeling there is a connection."
Dodi came out of the kitchen door and looked around the garden at everyone who was there. "Have you seen Ilbie?" he asked them. "'Stella wants to go home, and I can't find him anywhere. He's not inside, nor out front. I've even been up and down the lane. I can't believe he'd go back to the Hall without her, or at least without telling her--or me. If your team of investigators has found Merimas's murderer, Frodo, perhaps you'll give me a hand in finding Ilbie next."
Frodo rose from his seat on the bench. "When did you see him last?" he asked not only Dodi, but the rest of the group.
Everyone agreed that Ilbie had been present when the guests had begun to disperse, but no one was certain when they'd seen him after that. Estella, who was reclining on the sitting room sofa before the fire when the others went in, said that she thought he had gone into the cottage just before Celie had left, and she'd come in after him about ten minutes later and looked around before asking Dodi.
Ilbie had only gone back to Brandy Hall, they all assured her. It was odd that he hadn't spoken to anyone before leaving, but there was no reason to be alarmed; everyone said so as they lit torches from the sitting room fire and went out to look for him. Melly, who walked home with Estella, agreed she would return to tell them if Ilbie was there, or join the search if he hadn't been found yet. The rest of the party went off in different directions from Ivysmial, searching the lane, the footpaths that led through the freshly ploughed fields and tall grass of the meadows between the cottages and Bucklebury.
Frodo took the lane toward the main road by the river, peering in under the bushes and trees on either side as he went. He stopped at Dinodas's cottage to find his aged uncle alone at his own supper; no, Dinodas hadn't seen Ilbie since the funeral, nor had he heard anything since he'd come in--but he didn't hear much at all these days.
He next went to look around Celie's cottage, which was dark and locked up. He was just considering going into the golfing meadow behind the cottages, although Ilbie would have no reason to go there at this hour of the evening, when Merry shouted from the other side of the lane, "I've found him! Come help!"
Frodo turned and ran as fast as he could toward flaring light of the upraised torch Merry was waving. There were other torch-lights in the darkness, also heading toward the spot.
Ilbie lay face down beneath the overgrown shrubbery that bounded the yard of an empty and long-disused cottage, not 100 yards from Ivysmial. He was bleeding from a wound on the side of his head. Merry was already crouched over him, pressing a handkerchief to the wound, but Dodi also rushed to kneel at his side and tried turn him over.
"He's still warm... Oh, he's breathing!" Dodi cried in obvious relief. "He isn't dead."
"No," said Merry, "but he's been badly hurt. He's been hit just the way Merimas was. Pip, will you run into Newbury and fetch a shirriff?"
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