Holmes
Sherlock

The Case of the Over-sized Hobbit

17 April. I was awoken early by my housekeeper, Mrs Badger.   "Doctor Longbottle", she exclaimed, "someone has murdered old Mr Baggins!"   "Murdered?" said I, while sitting up and tiredly affixing my false Hobbit's feet, which I had carelessly let drop beside my bed the previous day.   "His head bashed in", said Mrs Badger, her long, thin nose twitching excitedly. I sighed.   "Very well", said I. "Tell Roper to get the cart ready while I have some coffee (imported from the plantations in Harad, which use ecologically correct methods and only employ free labour)."   As always, Mrs Badger was absolutely right. I sometimes think she should be employed as town crier, but then, no one in Hobbition would ever get any sleep. Old Mr Baggins's head had been smashed to a pulp with a blunt instrument, viz. a mithrilelephantine statue of a golf-playing Troll. In death, his tremendous paunch and big fat thighs looked oddly pathetic. He always was partial to his vittles! Two Shirriffs from the New Dunland Metre (the so-called Metropolitan Police), Street and Crickhollowson, were already present on my arrival, but declared themselves baffled as to the identity of the perpetrator. I pronounced Mr Baggins dead and returned home. 18 April. A certain Miss Marbles has moved to the village with her companion, a rather tall spinster called Miss Murbles. Miss Marbles is a very talkative, friendly soul, whereas her companion seems slower and rather quiet. I met them in passing in High Street and will meet them again this evening at Squire Bulger's home. Miss Murbles did not laugh at my ethnic Orc jokes. She is so humourless one might think she was a Swede. Later. I just scratch this down before going to bed after a long, upsetting and wearisome evening. Squire Bulger has been poisoned! Someone smuggled a deathly poison, a so-called Minas Mickey Finn, into his port and he died before our eyes. The question everyone asks is: "Who did it?" The Shirriffs from the New Dunland Metre seem as baffled as ever. 20 April. Our vicar, Mr Hornblower, was shot in front of the altar as he performed his nondenominational service to Eru. It seems that anyone in the congregation could have performed the deed with the aid of a so-called Cloak of Stunning Darkness. People are beginning to fear going outdoors, and the Shire Post asks in a leading article what the Shirriffs are doing. 21 April. Mr Grubb, the solicitor, will read the late Mr Baggins's will to invited guests today. I am one of that number, as are Mrs Hornblower, Angelica Sagwell (her candy-devouring daughter from her first marriage), flirtatious young Lolita Cotton (the daughter of an agricultural labourer and apparently a bit of nonsense Mr Baggins indulged in during the last months of his life), Mr Chicko Bulger (old Mr Bulger's ne'er-do-well son), a mysterious distant relative of Mr Baggins's called Mr Underhole and Joe Tunnelly, Mr Baggins's Breelandish gardener. We are all, it seems, beneficiaries of Mrs Baggins's will, which means that one of us probably murdered him and then went on to kill the others because they were inconvenient witnesses. Mrs Badger is convinced that Tunnelly is a murderer because he is from foreign parts. I believe her thinking is sound. Just consider that villainous brogue he speaks in! And the only vegetable that seems to interest him is taters. The police will be present. For some reason, Shirriff Street has invited Miss Marbles and Miss Murbles to attend the occasion. 22 April. Oh, dear! It turns out I was the murderer. I should have known. The doctor always does it, when it isn't the solicitor. (Mr Grubb was eliminated as a suspect because he was stabbed to death during the proceedings.) It seems I had been slowly poisoning old Mr Baggins for years, but when he considered settling his entire estate on that young trollop Lolita Cotton, I struck before he could act.   Miss Marbles and Miss Murbles were simply Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson in disguise! How could I have missed that? The fact that they are both tall Men, standing well over 180 centimetres (or six feet, as the retarded Valinoreans compute length) should have alerted me. I stabbed Grubb when Mr Holmes fooled me into believing that Grubb had introduced a forged will leaving everything to himself. And that was my undoing! I was blinded by greed! I was a fool, a fool! Aah! Öjevind Lång