The Whitfurrows Chief Shirriff, Mr. Horrocks, arrived within the hour accompanied by the local shirriff-on-duty. Mr. Horrocks also remembered Frodo from the investigation of Camellia Stillwaters' disappearance, and didn't seem surprised to find him waiting with Mr. Noakes in the front hall of the inn. "Pleased to see you again, Mr. Baggins," he said with a bow, then added in jocular tones, "When I heard as there was a dead lady at the Badgers, I guessed you might be about in it somewhere."
"Not by intention!" Frodo answered. "I was merely passing by and stopped the night."
"But it's lucky he's here," Mr. Noakes said helpfully. "Mr. Baggins says he knows all about this lady, and the gent as was with her."
"Do you now?" asked Mr. Horrocks, and looked keenly interested. "Well, whyn't you tell me about them, if you please, Mr. Baggins? If you can say who done this murder already, it'd save us time. And you might show us where the body is, Mr. Noakes. Come along, Culby," he addressed the shirriff who had come with him.
Mr. Noakes led the party back to the locked room. While the Chief Shirriff had his own look around, Frodo told Horrocks what he knew of Lady Iris.
"How would you say she died, Mr. Baggins?" Mr. Horrocks asked when Frodo had finished. "With her face all gone blue like that, I'd guess she was smothered by a pillow or some such."
"The only pillows is under her head," Shirriff Culby observed.
Frodo had to agree that suffocation seemed unlikely. There was no sign of a struggle, which would surely have occurred if Florisel or someone else had tried to hold her down. He was forming his own idea of what had happened in this room last night. "We don't know that it's murder, Shirriff," he began, but before he could draw Chief Horrocks's attention to the most important clues, Mr. Noakes spoke:
"What about that cup you said as I shouldn't touch, Mr. Baggins?"
"This one here?" Culby bent down to pick it up, but was stopped by the Chief.
"Ah, it's poison, is it?" asked Horrocks eagerly.
"There are signs," said Frodo. "Aside from her odd color, you'll notice a brownish stain on the pillow beneath her head--I believe she was sick shortly before she died. And that cup--I believe she was holding it. She must have drunk from it. There's very little spilt on the floor."
"Who was it that poisoned her?"
"As I said, we don't know that it is murder, Shirriff," Frodo repeated.
"Suicide, then?"
"Yes, or perhaps an accident. I have reasons to believe that she didn't take her own life deliberately. That cup, for example. Have you observed than when the light strikes it just so, it shows up those little smudges on the glaze?"
The Chief Shirriff bent down to peer more closely at them. "Those finger-marks?" The shaft of sunlight had moved away from the cup and was now over a foot away; the smudges were no longer as obvious as they'd been when Frodo had first noticed them, but were still visible.
"I've been told that the marks on the tips of no two people's fingers are exactly alike," he explained. "Look: you can see there are two distinct sets on this cup, one small and delicate. Hers." He indicated Lady Iris's hand, which dangled over the bedside about eight inches above the fallen cup. Her fingertips were remarkably dainty. "The others are larger and squarish. They most likely belong to her companion."
"The lover you say she run off with," said Culby with some relish at this scandal among high-born folk.
"Yes, that's right. His name is Florisel Pumble-Took. As far as we know, he was the only other person in this room last night. Now, these marks of his are most curiously placed-"
But Chief Shirriff Horrocks was no longer interested in fingerprints; if the famous Frodo Baggins said that this missing lover had handled the cup Lady Iris had drunk from, then he must be the person they wanted. "We'll get right on finding him--catch him if he an't gone right out of the Shire." He turned to give the order to Shirriff Culby to round up as many off-duty shirriffs and other volunteers as he could for the search. "It's plaguey-sharp eyes you have, Mr. Baggins! I'd never've noticed a thing like that. Murder or accident or what have you, he'll tell us how it come about once we find him."
Frodo sighed. He supposed that the Chief Shirriff was right in one thing: Florisel would have to be found and his story heard for the truth to be known.
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