A Rope to Hang Himself by Kathryn Ramage

They went into the small private dining room not long afterwards. Mr. Bloomer hadn't been in the taproom to hear Frodo's pronouncement, but news of it had carried to him and he regarded his guests with a new and fearful deference as he knocked on the dining room door and ventured in. He had a request to make: Would Misters Baggins and Gamgee object to sharing the room? There was only the one private room at the Mousehole, but it was big enough for as many as ten hobbits.

"Is it the two young gentlemen who arrived this afternoon?" asked Frodo. "No, I don't mind sitting at dinner with them. Do you, Sam?"

"Not if you don't."

A minute later, Pippin and Merry came in, and more of that polite, impersonal chat was exchanged while Mr. Bloomer was in the room. Once he'd gone and shut the door, Merry suddenly became less tipsy and asked, "What've you been up to, Frodo? Tell us everything!"

"You heard what I said out there--we've been finding out all we can about this hobbit who was hanged. Yesterday, Sam and I visited a lot of farms and other places where he worked and discovered that he was a thoroughly bad lot," Frodo reported.

"Yes, they told us all that before you came," Pippin interjected.

"Today, Sam's been calling on his local relations, and I've been looking for girls." This last remark made Frodo's cousins yelp with laughter. Maisie came in, and laid out the bread platter and four plates of soup.

"So, who do you suspect?" asked Merry once the maid had exited. "What girls, fathers, brothers, and sweethearts?"

"Her, for one," said Sam, nodded his head toward the closed door to indicate Maisie. "Now wait-"

"And who do you think did the hanging for her?" asked Pippin.

"That rather heavy-set lad at the bar is her brother," Frodo said. "I imagine he can haul a grown hobbit up on a rope without much effort or assistance. The innkeeper is their father. Maisie says she would have nothing to do with Malbo, the murdered hobbit, but if he troubled her with his importunities, they might very well have acted on her behalf. Although I think it must have been more than an annoyance for them to go to such lengths. And there's Tully Digby, whom you've met. His whereabouts on the night of the murder are undetermined-" Sam had told Frodo about his interview with Mr. Digby before Silvanus had joined them. "I have an idea that he's sweet on Maisie. She's got some lad in mind, but she wouldn't tell me who."

"Wait-" said Sam.

"Who else?" asked Merry. "Those girls you were asking about?"

"One of them, yes--Miss Petula Applegrove. You've met her brother. Her older sister seems quite protective of her. I thought that Mr. Woodbine might be interested for her sake, only he says that it's the older sister he likes. Perhaps if he thinks of Petula as a sister..." Frodo considered this for a moment. "Oh, and there's a maidservant, Tessa Flock, who's with child by Malbo and disgraced. Her brother's very angry about it, but I wonder if he's so angry because he didn't know about the baby until after he'd gone after Malbo and it was too late."

"Wait just a minute!" Sam could bear no more. "Before you go on, you tell me: What's all this Mr. Marshbottom and Mr. Greenhills nonsense about?"

"Oh, that was Frodo's idea," said Pippin, grinning. "He wrote us to come in disguise and pretend we didn't know him, or you."

"I'm sorry I didn't have a chance to tell you," Frodo said apologetically to Sam. "I meant to before Merry and Pippin arrived, to warn you to pretend you didn't recognize them either, but you know how you were when I told you they were coming, and they've gotten here so quickly."

"Sam was fine," Merry said with a significant glance at Pippin, who was oblivious to it. "He didn't like it, but he didn't give us away."

"We rode as fast as we could," Pippin added. "We hardly stopped, except to change ponies at Tuckborough and Michel Delving--Lad wouldn't lend us the famous Fleetfoot, but he's got some other fast ponies in his stable. We didn't want to miss anything. We made up our own names and a good story on our way here. All very clever of us."

"It would be clever if you could recognize your new name when you hear it," said Merry. "Try to remember that you're Faramir now, Pip--although I wouldn't like to guess why you chose that name specially."

"You know how much trouble we have getting people to tell us things these days, Sam," Frodo went on. "If the lads out there knew Merry and Pippin were working with us, they'd be just as guarded with them as they've been with us. This way, I hoped they might pick up some gossip that no one will tell us."

"Oh, we have-!" Pippin began eagerly, when Maisie returned with the roast and vegetables. The group fell silent, quickly finishing their soup so that Maisie could take away the empty bowls. When she had gone again, Pippin picked up where he'd left off: "There's somebody else you don't know about." He glanced at Sam shyly.

"It's Hamson Gamgee," Merry told Sam. "Before you came in, the lads we were playing dice with hinted pretty broadly that he must have something to do with the hanging because it happened in his yard."

"But Ham's not sweet on any girl," Sam protested.

"Are you sure of that, Sam?" Frodo asked him.

"The only one I've heard that might've been matched up with him is our cousin, Hedda, and she's gone and married somebody else and doesn't live around Gamwich anymore." Sam wasn't going to tell them what his Gamgee relatives had also said about Ham. "Ham said himself just today that there wasn't nobody who'd marry him."

"Ah, but that might mean he had hopes and she wasn't interested," said Pippin. "Maybe it was this girl Frodo's been asking about-"

"Which one?" asked Merry.

"The one with the sister and brother."

"Yes, that's possible," said Frodo. "It would explain why Pandro's so close-mouthed. He's afraid his sister is involved even if she wasn't quite disgraced. That's something you'll have to find out." He looked at his cousins. "Your task while you're here will be to find out if Sam's brother is said to be sweet on Petula, or any girl." He reached across the table to place a hand on Sam's arm. "I'm sure he'd like it if we could clear Ham of all suspicion as quickly as possible."

Pippin and Merry nodded.

"After dinner, why don't you go back to the taproom?" Frodo suggested, and smiled. "If you don't mind undertaking so onerous a task."

"That'd be no imposition," Pippin said, grinning.

"I think it would look odd if you don't go in for a bit too, Sam," Frodo continued, "but don't stay too late. The lads who come in every night will be more confiding in strangers if you aren't there. I'm going to bed." Something in his tone told Sam he had no worries; Frodo wouldn't be waiting up for him tonight.
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