When Frodo left Lady Iris, he returned to the slope of the hill outside his bedroom window to find that his friends had gone. He quickly spotted Sam and Merry in the garden next door, sitting and talking with an older gentleman, but Pippin was nowhere in sight. Frodo went down to join his friends and be introduced to Alamaric Took, who had heard a lot about Frodo from his daughter and was delighted to meet him at last.
"And where's Pippin got to?" Frodo asked.
"Off with Di and Isigo," Merry replied with a wry note that puzzled his cousin. "They've gone to look at some other laburnum trees."
"Some other-?" Frodo glanced at the cluster of trees in the Thain's garden.
"I got some pods from under those," Sam reported, and patted his bulging coat pocket. "But there's no way o' knowing if that's where the poison came from."
"Is there a way to find out?" Alamaric asked, no longer troubling to hide his curiosity. His first shock at hearing about the danger to his uncle Brabantius had abated, and as long as no harm had come yet, he was going to enjoy this opportunity of seeing the famous detective at work.
"Not that I know of. But I've been thinking that we can narrow down the possibilities of who brought it into the house, and how it got into the wine." Frodo excused himself; he didn't ask Sam to come with him, but Sam followed him anyway. Merry remained with Alamaric.
They went into the Thain's Hall to the butler's pantry. Tulipant was seated at the table in the middle of the room, polishing the best silver and looking rather pale and ill. He quickly rose to his feet as the detective and his friend came in, and asked if there was anything he could do for them.
"As a matter of fact, yes," said Frodo. "That wine you carried from the Thain's study yesterday--have you poured it away yet?"
"No, Mr. Baggins, not yet. I thought as it might be wanted, so I put it aside--over there." Tulipant indicated the decanter sitting on top of a squat cabinet against the far wall. The glass of wine the Thain had poured for himself but not drunk still sat on the tray beside it.
Frodo went to the decanter and removed the stopper to sniff the wine inside: it had a heady pleasant smell, redolent of dry apples and oak, and probably had an oaky flavor to match. He then picked up the glass and held it up to examine the contents. The liquid was very dark red, clear, not clouded, and there was no sign of sediment. Nor was there any in the decanter. He asked, and Tulipant confirmed that he always strained the wines through a sieve when he decanted them.
Frodo dipped a finger into the wine and was about to put a few drops on his tongue when Sam cried out, "What're you doing?"
"I wanted to see if I could taste the poison. I won't swallow it."
"Here, you let me do that." Sam took the glass from him.
"Do you know what laburnum tastes like, Sam?"
"No, no more'n you do, but I heard tell the seed-pods is bitter. And I know what wine tastes like, and what it oughtn't taste like." Sam took a sip, then spit it out into a slops bowl Tulipant quickly provided.
"Well?" asked Frodo.
"It's a strong-tasting wine to begin with," Sam reported after he had rinsed his mouth with water. "'Less the poison was bitter as bile, you'd have to put a lot of it in before it'd be noticed."
"Thain Brabantius must be used to the taste of his own special wine. Surely he could detect a subtle difference, if something were added to it. Tulipant," Frodo turned to the butler, who had been observing these proceedings with great interest, "you've drunk some of the Thain's Own, haven't you? You told me yesterday that you sample the wine whenever you open a new bottle."
"Yes, Mr. Baggins, that's so," Tulipant answered. "I had a bit of this last when I opened the bottle, to sure as the wine hadn't been tainted by a bad cork, as sometimes happens. I've come to know the taste of it over the years. If you don't mind, Mr. Gamgee-" He took the wine-glass from Sam and gulped a mouthful. Frodo gave a cry of protest, but Tulipant only swished the wine around in his mouth in the peculiar, energetic way that butlers had when testing a wine's flavor, then spit it out into the slops bowl and rinsed his mouth.
"Not to say it's bitter, sir," he told Frodo, "but there's an odd undertaste."
"And you're certain that taste wasn't there when you poured this same wine from its bottle?"
"No, Mr. Baggins. I would have noticed it."
"When did you open this bottle?"
"It'll be in my pantry-book." Tulipant located the book on a small table near the door to the wine cellar and looked at the last page he had written on. "June the fourteenth. His Thainship might take a glass or two of his wine of an evening and this decanter'd last him a week in the usual way of things, but he fell ill just afterwards and it's hardly been touched since. You see there's nearly half of it left."
"How long was June the fourteenth before the Thain had his illness?" asked Frodo.
"The day before." The butler looked distressed at this thought. "I was never took ill myself, but if there was anything wrong with the wine when I opened the bottle, I mightn't've drunk enough. I only took a sip, to test as you might say."
"What about his Thainship?" asked Sam. "Didn't he notice the taste?"
"If he did," Tulipant answered, "he never said so to me. I remember when I carried it into his Thainship's study. He was a-sitting at his desk, going over his big books with Mr. Florisel, and as he was busy-like, he didn't come to drink it 'til later. He normally likes a taste of a fresh decanter when I bring it in. He didn't drink of this one 'til the next day."
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