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In Chap­ter XVII of “The Woman in the Alcove,” titled “Sweet­wa­ter in a New Role,” we find a grip­ping nar­ra­tive focused on an espi­onage mis­sion involv­ing three main char­ac­ters in the dis­trict attor­ney’s office: the dis­trict attor­ney, the inspec­tor, and the detec­tive named Sweet­wa­ter. Assigned to sur­veil Mr. Grey, Sweet­wa­ter reveals a star­tling piece of intel­li­gence to the offi­cials, elic­it­ing a tense reac­tion and prompt­ing a lock­down of the room for a pri­vate dis­cus­sion.

Sweet­wa­ter recounts his recent jour­ney with Mr. Grey to Maine, detail­ing how he inge­nious­ly secured a posi­tion as Mr. Grey’s tem­po­rary valet to stay close and observe him. Mr. Grey, depict­ed as state­ly yet bur­dened by an over­whelm­ing care, was seek­ing a dis­creet oppor­tu­ni­ty to observe a man with­out being noticed him­self. Sweet­wa­ter took this mys­te­ri­ous task seri­ous­ly, under­stand­ing he was embroiled in a del­i­cate sit­u­a­tion pos­si­bly linked to an unnamed but dan­ger­ous indi­vid­ual, James Well­go­od.

In a bustling Maine town, Sweet­wa­ter achieved his ini­tial objec­tive of iden­ti­fy­ing Well­go­od, who was sus­pect­ed of being a sig­nif­i­cant fig­ure, pos­si­bly entan­gled with New York law enforce­men­t’s inter­ests. With cun­ning and a bit of chance, Sweet­wa­ter gath­ered that Well­go­od, known in New York as pos­si­bly a wait­er or a stew­ard, was cur­rent­ly mas­querad­ing as an ambi­tious patent med­i­cine man­u­fac­tur­er, aim­ing to rev­o­lu­tion­ize health reme­dies. This dis­cov­ery adds lay­ers to Wellgood’s char­ac­ter, sug­gest­ing a man of diverse tal­ents and dubi­ous inten­tions.

Sweet­wa­ter’s sur­veil­lance work reveals his adept­ness at blend­ing into his envi­ron­ment, extract­ing key infor­ma­tion from locals with min­i­mal effort. His inter­ac­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the infor­mant Dick and the post­mas­ter, show­case a keen abil­i­ty to nav­i­gate through sub­terfuge and soci­etal intri­ca­cies. Yet, even with his cun­ning, Sweet­wa­ter finds him­self at a cross­roads, strug­gling to bridge the gap between Mr. Grey’s demands and the elu­sive Wellgood’s activ­i­ties with­out arous­ing sus­pi­cion.

Upon reunit­ing with Mr. Grey, Sweet­wa­ter presents his find­ings, set­ting the stage for a com­plex con­fronta­tion. Grey’s iso­lat­ed din­ing, jux­ta­posed with Sweetwater’s elec­tri­fy­ing news, under­scores the brew­ing storm that their inter­ac­tion with Well­go­od might unleash. This chap­ter is not only a tes­ta­ment to Sweetwater’s resource­ful­ness and brav­ery but also a set­up for a murky nar­ra­tive involv­ing hid­den iden­ti­ties, secret moti­va­tions, and a poten­tial clash between obscured pasts and uncer­tain futures, all shad­owed under the over­ar­ch­ing mys­tery that engulfs “The Woman in the Alcove.”