"Here, Frodo, are you all right?" Sam hastened out of the burial vault after Frodo left it so abruptly. He went to his friend, who was standing a few feet beyond the door, head down with his hands on his knees, breathing in deeply.
"I'm fine," Frodo answered as Sam tentatively put a hand on his back. "It's just- She was smothered. Someone held this handkerchief over her mouth and nose." Frodo's own handkerchief had fallen to the ground, but he held out the one he'd found beneath the body for Sam to see. "She tried to pull it away and tore off several fingernails in the struggle, but ran out of air before she succeeded."
"So it's a murder," said Sam.
"Undoubtedly." Frodo stood up straight. He was breathing normally now. As his head cleared, ideas began to crowd in. "I don't think she was killed within the vault. What reason would she have to go in there while she was still alive? We haven't been able to think of a plausible one. She did fight, yet there's little sign of a disturbance in there. She was therefore placed upon that shelf after she was dead. Her murderer brought her body here. He must've known that the vault was unlocked, Sam, and he must also have known why."
He turned to Leekey, who hadn't wanted to be left alone inside the vault; the man-of-business stood at the open door staring at him and looked rather pale and ill himself.
"Who did know, Mr. Leekey?" Frodo asked. "Besides yourself, there were the two lads who swept up. What were their names?"
"Thistlespar," Leekey answered in a hoarse voice.
"Would they tell anyone about their work that day?"
"I don't see why they would, nor why they wouldn't." Leekey pulled himself together, and began to speak more normally. "They take odd jobs like it every day, and there was no particular reason to keep it secret."
"What about Mrs. Scuttle's maid?"
"Glory? She was there when Mrs. Scuttle told me to have the vault made ready for her and gave me the key. But you can't think a little lass like that killed a woman and carried her off here by herself, Mr. Baggins?"
"No." Frodo had to agree; the maidservant was a slight girl incapable of placing an adult hobbit's body on a shelf so high off the ground without assistance. If she'd had any part in this murder, she hadn't done the heavy work.
"A lot of people would've heard that Mrs. Scuttle was poorly and in her last days," Mr. Leekey added. "Or they might've seen me or the Thistlespar lads coming and going up this way and guessed what was afoot."
This possibility would have to be explored more thoroughly. Who might have seen the vault being opened that day? "Unless the murderer meant to come back and remove the woman's body before Mrs. Scuttle's funeral, he must've realized that it would be discovered--just as it was," Frodo continued his train of thought aloud. "Perhaps he was counting on no one being able to identify the woman to conceal his part in the crime. And that's quite true. We can't begin to guess why someone would wish her dead until we learn who she is and why she came to Gamwich."
They'd done all they could here. Frodo thanked Mr. Leekey and told him that he could lock the vault door. To spare the other hobbit a second visit to the Scuttle smial, Frodo also relieved Leekey of the key.
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