Ilbie was sitting up in bed, propped by a bank of freshly fluffed pillows, his head and arm in bandages, when Dodi brought Frodo in to see him. Estella and Hilda were sitting in attendance, as they had been since Ilbie had been injured, and they both stayed to hear him tell Frodo his tale, even though they had heard it once that morning.
"The first guests were leaving, and some others had gone- ah- into the cottage, to make use of the chamber pots." Ilbie blushed at alluding to such an indelicate subject before a mixed audience. "Ladies, you know. I didn't want to wait 'til they were finished, so I went off into the bushes to relieve myself. While I was- um- off, I saw someone in the yard of that old cottage next door. I thought at first it was Uncle Dino, hunting for a golf ball he'd hit the wrong way, but then I realized Uncle Dino must still be at the Hall and besides it was getting late and too dark for him to start a game. Besides, this person was sneaking and ducking in such a way, it made me think he was watching us at Ivysmial and trying not to be seen."
"He?" echoed Frodo.
"I think so. I didn't see any skirts, but they'd be down behind the shrubbery in any case. I mostly saw a floppy old hat, and I think he was wearing a black coat or cloak."
"Everybody was wearing black yesterday," said Estella, who clung to her husband's uninjured hand throughout this interview. "And lots of people were in hats--the farm-folk, and most of the old people."
"Why, I'm sure that Dinodas was wearing the same battered old hat he does his gardening in!" interjected Hilda.
"Anyway, I thought I'd better go over to see who it was," Ilbie continued. "I went 'round to the back and slipped in through a gap in the hedge--and that's all I remember, except how it hurt." Ilbie lifted his splinted arm to touch his temple gingerly. "I feel like my skull's been split open."
"You're lucky it wasn't!" cried his mother. "My poor darling--but that ought to be a lesson to you not wander off into the bushes like some farm-lad who wasn't brought up properly and knows no better. Now he's awake at last," she informed Frodo, "Esmeralda's given him something for his head. We didn't like to dose him before we knew how bad it was, nor so much that he couldn't tell you what happened to him without it sounding like a bad dream." She took up a small bottle of syrupy black medicine and measured out a few drops into a spoon. "I'll give you a bit more now, and you'll rest and be fine, Ilbie dear. Frodo will find out who's doing these terrible things."
There was little more Ilbie could tell him. Since Frodo did not want to tire the young hobbit while he was recovering, he left Ilbie to the care of his wife and mother, and went down to the drawing room, where he had left Sam and Pippin in the company of the other Brandybucks.
Everyone had heard Ilbie's story, either from Ilbie himself or second-hand, and they were discussing what the appearance of this floppy-hatted stranger could mean when Frodo and Dodi came into the room. Flora and Isalda were in a whispered conference, and were especially eager to talk to Frodo.
"We didn't have a chance to tell you before about our call upon the Marishe girls yesterday," said Isalda. "Most of it was frightful nonsense, but one of them said something you ought to know about."
"It was Dioica Marishe," added Flora, "as silly a creature as was ever born in the Shire. All the Marishes are silly chits. They told us tales of murderers lurking everywhere."
"But Dioica went one better than her sisters--she claimed that she 'felt' someone was hanging about in the bushes, watching us out in the garden at Ivysmial yesterday. Flora and I thought it was only more of their nonsense at the time, until we heard Ilbie's story. It's exactly what he saw too."
"Only poor Ilbie went over to have a look and got coshed on the head for his pains," said Pippin.
"Yes, exactly. So we've been thinking that perhaps this wasn't all a piece of Dioica's silliness and wild imagination after all."
"You mean, she really did see someone, perhaps out of the corner of her eye, enough to remember it later?" asked Frodo.
"Something like that, yes," answered Isalda. "If it were enough to alarm her at the time, she would've said something earlier, wouldn't she?"
Dodi looked thoughtful. "But if there were someone hanging about, hiding over at the old cottage and watching us during the party," he said, "that means Ilbie couldn't have been hit by anybody who was actually at the party. Oleander Woodbury went past the back of that cottage-"
"But after Ilbie had been struck and the watcher had gone away," Frodo said. "Unless Oleander went up and peeked over into the yard, he might very well have seen nothing amiss."
"So you don't have to think any more about hunting him down and thumping his head in in revenge," Merry said to Dodi.
"Then it's not one of our friends!" Celie exclaimed, and looked immensely relieved. She looked up at Frodo. "Does that mean that whoever killed Merimas didn't do it over me?"
She sounded so eagerly hopeful that Frodo didn't have the heart to tell her that, even if none of her friends had harmed her brother, it didn't necessarily follow that they had nothing to do with her husband's death. It was even possible that one of them had a friend or confederate who was actually doing the dirty work. "I think we must broaden the scope of this investigation and consider other possibilities," he answered.
"What do we do now?" Dodi asked.
"I don't know yet," Frodo admitted. "I need to think of who else it might be."
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