A family murder in Great Smials?

[Lalwendë]

What might the motive be though? Anyone who watches Morse/Lewis knows that barring madness, there must be a motive!

I can't think of one (it would take someone pretty nasty to commit murder to get her hands on a necklace), so it was likely accident, and if Pippin was a clumsy young oaf then it's likely his sister was too. No doubt it would cast suspicions upon her, and a large helping of shame upon the family too in the gossipping Shire, hence this might be why they would seek to bar her from big events and keep things hush-hush. Of course after a decent time she would be forgiven for making a tragic mistake and the jewels could even have been promised as part of a will. Was the gossip about them something which stemmed from the Tooks or from the general population?

And yes, they do have lawyers in the Shire - they were in the process of selling off Bag End at the very moment Bilbo returned!

Originally Posted by Faramir Jones

While Tolkien presented the Shire as a more idealised version of a village in the English Midlands c.1897, he cleverly did not present it as some kind of utopia.

Indeed, and one of the nastier aspects of village life is the ridiculous level of idle gossip, in fact it's one of the nastier aspects of British life full stop!