Dusk was settling over the Shire by the time they reached the eastward borders of Buckland. The Hedge rose tall and forbidding at the end of the road before them, dark even in the last golden light of the setting sun. They stopped their ponies at the Hay Gate; to one side sat a small, thatched hut where the gate guards on duty could take shelter, and a group stood outside it--Horrocks and Muggeredge and a number of the shirriffs and volunteers called upon for the hunt that had concluded here. Chief Muggeredge came forward to greet them.
"It's good of you to come all this way, Mr. Baggins," he said. "Mr. Horrocks here's been telling me how you set 'm after this gent. `Tis more excitement than we've seen since you went off from Buckland last year after your poor cousins was killed. Welcome to you too, Mr. Gamgee. It's not often you see so many Chiefs come together unless his Mayorship calls a council in Michel Delving. But this is a special occasion. We had quite a chase!"
"We got him at last, Mr. Baggins," Chief Horrocks added, and sounded rather pleased with himself. "I heard tell this morning that a strange gent stopped at the Buckshead just this side of the Bridge not long past daybreak and tried to hire a pony. He didn't get one--but it told us where this Mr. Pumble-Took was and which way he meant to leave the Shire. I figured as he had to stay near the road to go out through the only gate in this part of the Hedge, and that's right where we found `m! He's in there, waiting." He gestured back to the hut, where one of the shirriffs was standing guard. "Did Culby tell you how he wouldn't explain himself to anybody but you, Mr. Baggins? Good--then you won't mind going in, and we'll hear what he has to say about this business and how the lady died."
Frodo thanked them, and was escorted into the hut. Florisel Pumble-Took sat on a bench within. This was indeed the face Frodo had glimpsed in the Three Badgers' stableyard the night before--handsome as always, but strained and weary and less dapper-looking than Frodo recalled.
At the sight of him, Florisel smiled. "Mr. Baggins. I wish I could say it was a pleasure to see you again. I saw you last night--did you know?--when you came into that little town in the elderly lady's carriage. That was fright enough, but then you came to the inn and I realized you meant to stop the night-!"
"I saw you then," said Frodo. "That's what started it all, wasn't it? You told Lady Iris I was there."
"Yes, that's right." Florisel met Frodo's eyes. "They won't hang me, will they?"
"No," Frodo assured him. In this one instance, he was certain that one hobbit responsible for the death of another was justified, and he would do all he could to see Florisel set free. "I'll defend you from that. I'll explain it to the shirriffs." He glanced back at the Chief Shirriffs standing at the hut's entrance, who looked as if they didn't understand a word of this conversation. "We found a small vial in Lady Iris's pocket that Shirriff Gamgee and I believe to have contained a poison--I've brought it with me." If the evidence of the finger-marks wasn't sufficient, surely that would help him to save Florisel. "I haven't let anyone touch the teacups."
Florisel didn't fully understand this last remark himself, but his expression brightened at the mention of the cups. His eyes were still fixed on Frodo's. "Ah, you know just how it was then? I guessed, hoped, you would. The shirriffs, I'm sure, are all good hobbits, honest and diligent, but I thought you would better understand how I came to be in this dire position. I remember how clever you were when you visited Long Cleeve last summer." He looked at Sam. "Mr. Gamgee, I see, is well. How are your other friends? Master Meriadoc, young Peregrin Took--did he marry Diantha after all instead of Diamond as the Tooks expected?"
"No," said Frodo. "They're merely good friends."
"And how is the Thain?" He was asking after Brabantius, not Pippin's father.
"He's still alive," answered Frodo, "but he isn't well, I'm afraid. You must know that Lady Iris's defection was a very hard blow to him, especially once he realized that she was the one who'd poisoned his wine. Did you know it yourself, Mr. Pumble-Took, when you left the Long Cleeve?"
"I was worried it might be so when Brabantius was taken ill so suddenly," Florisel admitted. "What I saw at the Thain's home worried me more, and I certainly knew the truth when Iris asked me to take her away. Oh, I had no doubt then, but I pretended to believe the reasons she gave, that she couldn't stand the suspicions and lies told against her. I helped her to flee. I loved her, you see. I always have, since she was a girl. I didn't care what she'd done--I saw it as my chance to save her and make her happy with me." He sighed. "Love makes us such blind fools."
"What happened to Mrs. Scuttle?" Frodo had assumed that Lady Iris's mother had left the Long Cleeve with her daughter.
"She died this past spring," said Florisel, "of natural causes, I assure you! The poor old woman wasn't used to travel. She'd never been out of the Cleeve before in her life, and the life we must lead while in constant flight was hard on her. Iris wouldn't leave her behind, and so we were obliged to stop. Iris sold some of her jewelry, and we took a little cottage outside Scary."
"Is that where you've been all this time?"
Florisel nodded. "Since last summer. That's when we began to call ourselves Mr. and Mrs. Flowers. We expected that we'd be found out any day, but we weren't."
"No," said Frodo. "Thain Brabantius didn't pursue you. He preferred to keep the matter as quiet as possible."
"Then we might've stayed on there, quietly," Florisel said somberly. "I would've preferred it, but a quiet cottage life wasn't what Iris desired. She waited through those months while Mrs. Scuttle was alive. When the old woman fell ill, Iris nursed her to the last, but once she died, Iris was impatient to be gone. We agreed we had best leave the Shire and start a new life elsewhere. We were on our way to the main road and the borders when we stopped at that little town."
"Budgeford," supplied Chief Horrocks.
"Yes, and imagine my surprise that we should run into you there!" Florisel spoke to Frodo; the others might not have been there for all he regarded their presence. "I went to her and said I'd seen you, that you were staying at the inn and we must fly immediately before we were recognized. Well, that was the end of it."
"Will you tell us about it, please?" Frodo requested gently. "What happened last night?"
"We agreed to hide in our room until we were ready to go," Florisel told him. "While we spoke of our plans to escape, Iris made a pot of tea and put lots of honey into the cups. I watched her do it. I knew that she was weary of the life we'd been living since we left the North Cleeve. She was weary of me. We'd come to it. I saw what I had to do." He was silent for a moment, then gulped and told the rest of his tale quickly, as if he wanted to finish and be done with it. "She drank her tea. She drank it all, and didn't notice anything odd in the taste. Then her face changed. She lay down on the bed as if she were suddenly in a faint, and she was sick. She looked up at me as if she knew what I'd done. I couldn't say No. I couldn't say anything to her, not even farewell. It only took a few minutes--I was surprised how quickly it was all over. After that, I thought it was best not to stay and answer questions, so I gathered my things and left."
"Now wait," said Chief Horrocks. "Did you murder this lady, or didn't you? It sounds to me like you just confessed to it, only Mr. Baggins seems to think you didn't."
"It wasn't murder," said Frodo.
"What was it then?" Florisel asked him, then turned to look at the Horrocks. "Don't you understand? Mr. Baggins does. Iris put poison in the tea meant for me. She gave it to me."
"Then how she'd come to drink it?"
"Quite simple, Shirriff. When she wasn't looking, I switched the cups."
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