When he left the butler's pantry, Frodo was eager to assemble his friends for another private conference. He had to tell them what he'd discovered, and talk over what it meant. He returned to the parlor to find all three of his companions there with the remnants of the tea and the North-Took family, who were still talking avidly about this latest turn of events.
"Did Brabantius confirm what I told you?" asked Florisel.
"He did," Frodo answered.
At this news, the North-Tooks were all happier than they'd been since Frodo had arrived. Isigo took his mother's hand, and Frodo realized how worried the boy had been for her. Diantha laughed and hugged her father; she also offered an apology for striking him, and Frodo accepted it politely, but his mind was elsewhere. He barely listened to everyone's admonitions that he turn his attentions to finding "the true poisoner"; only Helimarcus was rude enough to add "and mind you leave us out of it!" although many of the others must be thinking it as well.
"The next time someone tells you that I'm the cleverest hobbit in the whole Shire," he told his friends once he'd gathered them in his room and flopped down on the bed, "you must say that it isn't so. I'm an utter fool."
"You didn't do so bad as all that," Sam said, and sat down beside Frodo to pat him consolingly.
"Brabantius told me that he and Florisel spent that day going over the rents. So did Florisel. Others had mentioned it too. I never thought to ask what that entailed. I based all my ideas on an assumption that wasn't so," Frodo replied. "I looked at everyone who was in the Thain's Hall during the day and night after that wine bottle was decanted. I thought it must most likely have happened in the study, but only Florisel and Althaea were in the study after Tulipant brought the wine in. Unless one of them put the poison into it right under Brabantius's nose, it's impossible. No matter who else was in the house that evening or during the night, they couldn't get in. They'd be met by a locked door."
"Your girl-friend will be relieved to hear that," Merry said to Pippin.
"She isn't my girl-friend!" Pippin told him. "She's a friend, and she's a girl. 'Tisn't the same thing. Besides, we were mostly talking about you."
"Were you?"
"Yes." Pippin met Merry's eyes, serious for once, to let him know that he was no longing teasing; he had taken Sam's words to heart. "We started talking about how we could help her father, and I ended up telling her all about you. I always do."
"Nobody could get into either the study or the wine cellar without Brabantius or Tulipant knowing about it," Frodo went on, disregarding this private exchange. "The one and only key to each door is held by one or the other, and neither would lend it away lightly. If Brabantius had lent his study key or thought it had been taken from him, I'm sure he would've told me. He's quite adamant that no one did. Tulipant..." he sighed. "I think Tulipant would tell me if he'd let someone to take his key to the wine cellar, unless he was trying to shield them."
"Maybe he mislaid his keys," said Sam.
"Yes, that's so. He admitted as much the first time I questioned him," Frodo answered, rallying. "If someone found and borrowed the key to the wine cellar... That might be done. They couldn't have kept it for long. Then it would simply be a matter of putting Tulipant's keys back where he'd left them, so he would notice nothing amiss when he realized he'd mislaid them."
"But that somebody'd have to make the poison beforehand and have it to-ready when it was needed," Sam observed. "It'd take some gathering of the laburnum pods and brewing. Would they leave finding the key to chance after that?"
"Yes, you're right," Frodo agreed. "They wouldn't leave something so important to chance. Perhaps they took the key from his room at night. He keeps his keys on a hook by his bed. He told me so. That's more likely than finding the key to the wine cellar lying about by happenstance. Now who...?" He pursued the possibility. "Whoever it was, they most likely would've done it at night. There are too many people in the kitchen chambers during the day, and someone who didn't belong there would draw attention. Night is the only time they would have time to go into the wine cellar long enough to remove the wax seal and cork from a bottle of the Thain's Own wine, put the poison in the wine, and go out again without fear of being seen or interrupted."
"What about Lady Iris?" asked Merry, dragging his attention away from Pippin. "You said she's in the kitchens quite a lot, more than ladies of her rank usually are."
"I don't believe it's her ladyship," said Sam. "If she goes into the kitchens more'n usual, it's to see her mum."
Frodo sat up. "Mrs. Scrubbs is her mother?"
"I was going to tell you soon as I had the chance, only I didn't get one with all those Tooks about," Sam explained. "Mrs. Scrubbs didn't tell me--her ladyship did, in the highest confidence."
"She put her own mother into service?" asked Merry.
"Her ladyship said it was the only way she could have her here without anybody noticing," Sam replied in the lady's defense. "You know how that lot o' Tooks'd treat her if they heard a word of it. They'd see it as worse a disgrace'n murder."
"Aunt Di and Aspid would eat it up like strawberries and cream," Pippin agreed.
"I believe you've gone sweet on her ladyship," Merry teased Sam.
"She's the only one in this Thain's family who an't turned up a nose instead o' speaking civil to me. And she's got a takin' way with her," Sam conceded. "I hope it an't her, is all. Now, what she told me can't go no further."
"Florisel knows all about it," said Frodo. "He told me something of her history. Not about her mother, but he's known her since she was a girl, in service herself. I'm sorry, Sam, she is in the kitchens often and that's worth noting. She and her mother might be working together. Or Mrs. Scrubbs might be acting for her. She has more chances than any of the Took family to get her hands on the key to the wine cellar and to do things in the kitchens. I don't see anybody else who has so much opportunity."
"Except for the butler," said Merry. "You've avoided looking at him, Frodo."
"Yes," Frodo had to agree, and grew more solemn. He'd become enthusiastic as he'd let his imagination take flight, but Merry's reminder brought him abruptly back to earth. "I've made an assumption too quickly again. Someone might have taken the key to the wine cellar--it is possible, but we don't know that it's so. If it isn't so, then suspicion falls on Tulipant alone. He could go into the wine cellar at any time, or else poisoned the wine in the pantry when he decanted it. That would be easiest, and he's the only one who could do it that way." He got up from the bed; he couldn't put this off any longer.
Frodo returned to the kitchens, where Mrs. Scrubbs and her staff were busy preparing for dinner. He stole quietly through the servants' dining hall, not wishing to disturb them, and went into the butler's pantry, where he'd left Tulipant little more than an hour ago. The silverware that Tulipant had been polishing earlier was laid out carefully on a tray on the table for Jeddy to carry upstairs, but the butler had gone. Frodo tried the door to the wine cellar, and found it locked. He then looked into several of the adjoining rooms, but there was no sign of Tulipant.
He went to the kitchen doorway. "Can you tell me, where has Mr. Tulipant gone?" he asked the cook and maidservants.
"I don't know, Mr. Baggins," answered Mrs. Scrubbs, turning from her stove. "An't he in his pantry? Since there's no wine served at table since you come, he sits in there all the day, a-staring at that pretty glass jug that had the bad wine it in. Here, Jeddy-lad--Go and find Mr. Tulipant for Mr. Baggins and be quick about it!"
The pantry-boy scurried off. Frodo returned to the butler's pantry, and it was only then that he noticed something he had overlooked before: the decanter of the Thain's Own wine, which had been sitting on its tray on the sideboard since Tulipant had brought it back from Brabantius's study, was now empty. It hadn't been washed, for traces of dark liquid remained at the bottom.
Sudden understanding and a feeling of dread overwhelmed him even before he heard Jeddy's swiftly pattering feet returning down the corridor beyond and the boy shouted: "Oh, Mrs. Scrubbs--come quick! It's Mr. Tulipant. He's a-lying in his room and he's been taken awful bad! I think he's near dead!"
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