Tucker Minnick waited over an hour for June Hudson in the Smith Library, watching staff children practice aircraft-spotting drills outside, and reflecting on a favorable SOG telegram praising his translation plan and suggesting Hoover’s notice. Buoyed but unsettled, he resolved to mend his strained relationship with June.

After June failed to appear, Tucker collected Sandy Gilfoyle’s wheelchair from the tearoom under the pretense of a security inspection, with Stella Gilfoyle’s easy consent. He pushed Sandy to the post office back room where Agent Hugh Calloway was steaming letters and sampling staff correspondence ranging from xenophobic remarks to economic frustrations and bawdy asides. Tucker warned that others besides the Bureau were surveilling the hotel.

Tucker quietly removed a hubcap and hid a tightly rolled note in the wheelchair’s axle, lacking a recording device small enough to include. He and Hugh joked briefly, but Sandy remained unresponsive. Tucker then reflected on the Gilfoyle family’s subtle, enduring influence on the Avallon and June’s central role in keeping it functioning.

Searching for June in housekeeping, Tucker found Toad Blankenship disciplining a junior maid. Toad revealed June’s intimate past with the Gilfoyles: June had effectively helped raise Sandy and had “played house” with him and Edgar, moving everywhere with the family as one of them, especially valued for her ability to work with the Avallon’s water. Toad dismissed gossip that June was crying over Sandy’s return, saying June’s current agitation was due to Jerry (unexplained here). After Toad left, Tucker rifled her drawers and found nothing unusual except a nameless love letter and a live snail with a distinctive horizontal shell, which disturbed him.

Alone, Tucker remembered similar snails—likely native “threetooth” river snails—that proliferated when the sweetwater “turned” during his youth, noting the eerie absence of children then. June appeared by the sweetwater font, echoing a recent dream of Tucker’s. She recited detailed observations about his habits gathered by staff, asserting her surveillance reach. He admitted the sweetwater smell kept him from sleeping and learned of a staff cabin with rainwater he could request.

Tucker apologized, saying he wanted a better relationship between the Bureau and the hotel. June immediately pressed him about Sabine Wolfe, citing Dr. Otto Kirsch’s sedation of Hannelore Wolfe during the book event. When Tucker offered action, he unilaterally agreed to add the syringe and sedative to the confiscated list.

Seeking reciprocity, Tucker asked about three silent calls placed from a sixth-floor cloakroom. June said staff would not do that but promised to find who did. Tucker warned her not to tip his hand due to the delicacy of the matter, and June replied wryly that such delicacy was the essence of hotel work.