"It seems that poor Sam can't even attend his great-aunt's funeral without stumbling upon a dead body."
Melilot Took looked up from her second breakfast, eyes wide at this incredible statement from her cousin Frodo Baggins. They'd been seated together at the kitchen table when Mrs. Parmiggen, the cook and housekeeper, had answered the front door and announced that a special messenger had come from Gamwich. Frodo was now standing in the sitting-room with the messenger, holding the opened letter that had just been delivered.
"A body?" repeated Melly. "Not his aunt's?"
"No, another one. It was placed in the family vault by hobbits unknown. An unexpected corpse, if you like. 'A woman nobody says they know'," Frodo read aloud from Sam's letter. "He's asked me to come as soon as I can and have a look at it." Frodo turned to the messenger and told him, "I'll ride back with you as soon as I've packed a few things. Would you like to come along, Melly?"
"And help you investigate this mystery?"
"You've done so before."
"Yes, that's so. I expect that if I stay on and make my home here, I'll do so again. But not just now." She shook her head. "It's too soon for me to take an interest in another murder. I don't want to think about that kind of thing at all. Besides, someone's got to look after the children." The children--Sam's four and Melly's little boy--were currently running around the gardens, screaming and laughing. "I think Sam would be happier knowing that I was here with them. And it will give me a chance to make myself better acquainted with the neighbors." A small smile appeared on the corners of her mouth. "I suspect that they're a little afraid of me."
"That's because you're a Brandybuck lady as well as a Mrs. Took who has come to live among them," Frodo replied. "And that's why you wouldn't marry me, isn't it? Plain and ordinary Mrs. Baggins among so many Bagginses isn't at all intimidating."
"I hope I will never be plain and ordinary, Frodo." Melly's smile had broadened, but Mrs. Parmiggen looked scandalized and the messenger extremely interested in this playful badinage. Half the Shire had heard the strange but exciting story of how the famous detective had proposed to his recently widowed cousin even before her husband's funeral, and how the lady had surprisingly turned him down. More surprising to Hobbiton, she had then come to Bag End and seemed to be planning to stay on and look after Frodo's household in a sisterly way.
"I don't imagine you ever shall, my dear. Very well," Frodo accepted her refusal and folded Sam's letter. "I'll write you when I reach Gamwich." He asked Mrs. Parmiggen to give the messenger some breakfast while he went to pack.
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