Frodo was still contemplating the possibilities of Miss Pogs when they reached Brandy Hall. Before they went in, Sam took his arm and murmured, "You'll tell Master Merry what you said this morning?"
"Yes," Frodo agreed, "I'll tell him." He'd promised Merry he would inform him once he'd made a decision.
"What d'you think he'll say about it?"
"I don't know, but he'll understand."
Even though Merry always said he wouldn't mind if Frodo went back to Bag End, Frodo didn't like the idea of leaving his cousin alone. Merry was the sort of hobbit who needed companionship, and the last thing Frodo wanted was to let him feel abandoned. Perhaps a reconciliation could be arranged between Merry and Pippin before he and Sam went home?
Once they entered the Hall, he told Sam he'd like to have a word with Merry privately, but found that Merry was just going out; the ladies wanted to call on Eliduc's parents to express their sympathies, but were a little frightened of walking into Bucklebury. Merry had agreed to escort them, and Pippin volunteered to go too. There was no opportunity for more than a few brief words before they went out the door.
His other cousins, however, were clamoring for information. After helping with the first part of Frodo's investigation, they now felt left out by sitting at home. Eliduc's death had struck most of them harder than Merimas's had, and frightened them more, but everyone wanted to do something, anything, to help find the person responsible.
Frodo had the gravest suspicion about who was responsible--even if that person had never struck one blow--but he didn't dare speak a name. If he was wrong, it was a hideous accusation to make; if it were true, he had no proof and many unanswered questions. What connection lay between Uncle Merry and those lonely paths where Merimas and Eliduc had met their fate? Who was aiding him? Frodo thought again of Tedro Todbrush lurking and watching, sitting in the Buckle's Notch with Eliduc--but why would Ted lure Eliduc to his death at Uncle's Merry's behest?
If there was a connection, Frodo meant to find it. The answer must lie in Berry's life, if not his death.
Pippin and Merry were out, and Ilbie was still abed in his room with Estella acting as nurse, but otherwise the group of young hobbits gathered in the drawing room that afternoon were the same ones Frodo had assembled to assist him the night before Merimas's funeral. Sam, the only addition, had taken a seat quietly and unobtrusively behind Frodo's.
"I admit I've been mistaken and in a muddle from the beginning," Frodo told the little group. "My suspicions first fell on your friends, Celie. I suspected Marleduc in particular."
"Marly?" Celie echoed. "But I told you that he wasn't in love me. He hasn't a thought of marrying me."
"You're wrong about that, Celie," her brother told her. "Give Marly a little time to work himself up to it, and you'll see."
Celie looked surprised and somewhat doubtful at this information, but as she sank back into her chair, she began to consider it with some seriousness.
"I see now that that was wrong," Frodo continued. "Whatever Marly's feelings, Eliduc's death has put an end to that idea. After Ilbie was injured, I began to look at other possibilities, people who might wish harm to the Brandybucks as a family. I considered the Underhayes."
"But you don't think so now, not about Amarilla?" asked Melly.
Frodo shook his head. "I was at Miss Underhaye's at the time when Eliduc was most likely killed." Of Darco, he was less sure. "No, the more I look into this, the more I feel certain that this has to do with Berry, and the sort of mischief he got up to before he died. I've been reminded of him since the beginning. I had to find a mysterious girl then too. Some of you knew who that girl was, and wouldn't tell me." He looked at the others around him. "Do any of you know who this girl is?"
"I refuse to believe she exists," said Melly. "Merimas may have courted someone before he married Celie, but I'll never believe he carried on with anybody afterwards. It's simply not possible."
"Marly told me that Eliduc had found her," Frodo announced.
This amazing news produced a burst of questions and exclamations of disbelief from his cousins. Was it so? Who could she be? Did Frodo know?
Frodo admitted that he didn't know. "But I believe that's why he was killed--if not by the girl herself, then by someone who doesn't want us to find out about her. I thought this morning that it might be the Miss Pogs who found Eliduc. I wondered if she might have killed him. She was out alone last night, when her sisters are too frightened to go out with a murderer in the neighborhood. She told me she was accustomed to seeing butchered animals."
Fatty nodded sagely. "Anybody who grew up on a farm would be. She'd probably cut a few throats herself too."
"But that's exactly why, when I thought it over, I decided it was unlikely that it could be her or one of her family," said Frodo. "If any of the Pogses planned to cut a hobbit's throat in the same way they'd kill a pig or lamb, they'd know how to do it properly. They'd bring the correct tool for the job--a good, sharp knife, instead of a dirty trowel or spade, and they'd make clean work of it."
Some of the girls shuddered at this cool talk of butchering a hobbit like an animal, and Celie, who had also gone around a bit with Eliduc when they were younger, looked distressed at the thought of it.
"So you mean that a farm-bred lass or lad couldn't have done it?" asked Fatty.
"No..." said Frodo, not thinking of the Pogses, "only that, even if it was such a person, he or she must have acted in haste. That he didn't bring a knife with him tells me so. A garden spade is hardly the sort of thing one would carry around, and certainly wouldn't bring if one were planning to commit a murder well in advance if a better weapon, such as a knife, were at hand. Whoever went out to that cart road past the Pogs farm, whether to meet Eliduc there or to follow and waylay him, had only decided to kill on the spur of a moment. Eliduc had suddenly become a threat, and the killer took up the first likely weapon he could find, just as he used a stone and a stick of wood when he struck at Merimas and Ilbie. The spade may have been stolen from the Pogses' kitchen garden, but I don't believe the killer was from the Pogs farm, or else he or she would've been able to find a better weapon even at a moment's notice.
"The thing that's puzzled me from the beginning is what Merimas was doing out on the Hedge path so late at night. Where was he going? And that cart track lies near it. What took Eliduc there yesterday afternoon? Where does that track go? Do you know it?" He looked around at his assembled cousins for an answer.
"Ilbie and I have ridden out on it a few times, but it's too cut up with wheel ruts to make a good bridle path," said Dodi. "It's meant for farmers to bring their crops and wares into town on market days--there's no other road that runs north and south on that side of Buckland, only the Hedge path, and that isn't wide enough for carts."
"Do the two run parallel?"
"More or less. The cart track winds about a bit, around the farmsteads and pasture-lands, and runs closer to the path in some places than others."
"There're very close up near Newbury, and meet just outside it," said Frodo. "Where is the other end?"
Dodi didn't know. "We never rode so far south. It twists eastward at Standelf, and we never went beyond that. It might go all the way down to Haysend."
"What other farms does it go past, besides the Pogs?"
"The little tenant-farms, mostly." Dodi thought about it. "The Spinneys live down that way, and the Mudwiches, the Todbrushes, the Brambles, the Peases. Merry or Uncle Merry could tell you exactly. They went all around Buckland just after Merry came home--you remember, Frodo, when they were gone for about a week to introduce everybody to the new Master. Uncle Merry might even have a map of the property and which farms lie where. I don't know if that little road will be on it, but it'll give you an idea of who lives in the area."
"Do any of those farmers have daughters of about Merimas's age?" asked Frodo.
Dodi gave the question more thought. "Gerda Spinney's about forty and still with her family, and the Mudwich girls are about the same age, but I think they're both married now. The Peases have four or five daughters, but they're little chits, twenty at most. There's no woman at all on the Todbrush farm since their mother died."
"Do you think Eliduc was going to see a girl who lived on one of the farms?" Fatty asked Frodo. "This supposed unsuitable girl-friend from Merimas's past?"
"Yes, I do," answered Frodo, "and what's more, I think that when we find her, we'll find she has a past connection with Berry as well." He said this last part reluctantly, for it was only a guess. Had there been some sort of rivalry between Berry and Merimas? Had the two once courted the same girl? Or perhaps Merimas had learned something about Berry's carryings-on that his father was desperate to keep secret even now, years after Berry's death. "Darco Underhaye told me that Berry had a new interest after Celie married," said Frodo. "I'm quite sure he wasn't referring to Mentha. I've wondered if it might be the same girl."
"I can't see Berry chasing after one of the Pogs girls," laughed Dodi. "He liked 'em prettier than that! I would've said he knew better than to dally with any farm-lass, since their fathers and brothers have pitchforks at hand."
"'Twasn't a farm-lass," said Sam. "I don't know about Mr. Merimas one way or 'tother, but if you're looking for a girl your cousin Berilac was playing about with afore he died, you're looking in the wrong place."
Frodo twisted around to stare at his friend. Sam had been so quiet until now that Frodo had nearly forgotten he was there. "But you didn't know Berry, Sam."
"No, I didn't," Sam answered, growing shy at suddenly having everyone's attention focused on him. "But I heard a thing or two about him after he was killed, and I know there's somebody right under your nose you haven't noticed. I'll wager she could tell you more if you asked her."
"Who is it, Sam? Someone I know?"
"That's right. She comes and makes your breakfast every morning. Missus- Miss-Pibble, you said her name was? Milliflora?"
"Milli?"
Sam nodded. "Now, I never saw her before the other morning, but I'm sure she's the one I heard about. D'you know her story, Frodo?"
"Not much of it, I'm afraid," Frodo answered. "Merry hired her to keep house for me when I first went to live at the cottage at Crickhollow. I know she's married to a farmer, Jebro Todbrush, but there was some quarrel between them, and she's taken up her maiden name and gone back to live with her mother in Newbury."
"She used to work here at the Hall as a kitchen-maid before she married," Melly contributed.
"And she has a little boy named Jem," added Celie.
"Yes, she brings him to Crickhollow sometimes to play in the garden while she works," said Frodo. "He's just a year or so older than Celie's Mungo."
Sam nodded. "Then it's the same Milliflora right enough. I heard tell of her when I was going around asking questions for you, Frodo, when we was first looking into Mr. Berilac's death."
"You never told me."
"I was going to, but then I saw that other maid--Lily, you remember--wearing Missus' Took's comb, Miss Melilot that was." He nodded apologetically in Melly's direction as he alluded to what must be a painful reminder for her. "It went out of my head afterwards, with all that happened and had nothing to do with her. After we went home, I never gave it another thought. I didn't place her as the same girl I'd heard about when I met her the other day. 'Twas only when I was in Newbury, gathering old gossip about Brandybucks as you asked me to. Somebody was saying what a caution Berilac was with all the housemaids here at Brandy Hall, and was telling a story how the husband of a girl who used to work here came to fight with Berilac over his wife, and it all came back to me. I remembered that Daffy told me the same story."
"Now who's this Daffy?" asked Frodo. Sam seemed acquainted with more girls than he'd been aware of.
"Daffodil, her name was," Sam answered. "She used to be a maid here at the Hall herself--a pretty girl, with yellow hair. I went about the Hall with her one day, helping out with the laundry, and she told me lots of stories about the goings on here. You remember her, Frodo."
Frodo did recall her now: she had brought a breakfast tray in to him on the morning after his bad turn and had smiled at Sam, no doubt as charmed by his sweetness and helpfulness as that other maid Lily had been when Sam had questioned her at his direction.
"I remember Daffy," Dodi said, and Isalda gave him a sharp, curious look. "She's married now, to a carter over in Stock. I remember the day that farmer came here too. He stood out on the lawn and shouted that he wanted Berry to come out and face a beating. Berry didn't go out, of course, and old Bramblebanks and Uncle Merry showed him off the property quick enough. I guessed there was some sort of scandal behind it, but I never knew what it was about 'til now."
"I didn't think to mention it yesterday," said Sam. "I had- well- things on my mind and didn't see how it was important 'til just now. I can't say about Mr. Merimas, but as for Berilac..." He was shy again as he looked at the group gathered around him, hanging on his words. "There's more scandal'n you know about. That little lad, Jem? He might be a nephew of yours."
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