- The epigraph to Chapter 18 is one of Christabel LaMotte's short poems on the topic of "gloves." As we know, LaMotte wrote a few of these, and her twentieth-century scholars believe that they're reflections of her relationship with Blanche Glover.
- As the chapter itself gets underway, we find Maud Bailey sitting in the Women's Studies Resource Centre at Lincoln University, where she's re-reading Blanche Glover's suicide note.
- As Maud reads the letter, she thinks of how little is known about Christabel LaMotte's whereabouts at the time of Blanche's death, in the spring of 1860.
- Suddenly, Leonora Stern sweeps into the room and gathers Maud into an enormous hug. Her visit is a surprise, and she asks Maud to put her up for a couple of nights.
- We learn that Leonora might have brought an important clue with her from America.
- As Leonora tells Maud, she was recently contacted by a French scholar named Ariane Le Minier, who may have something juicy to share with them about Christabel LaMotte's whereabouts in 1859 and 1860.
- Back at her apartment that evening, Maud translates Ariane Le Minier's letter. In it, Ariane explains that she recently discovered a letter that was written by one of Christabel LaMotte's distant relatives, Sabine de Kercoz, who mentions that her cousin Christabel was visiting the de Kercoz family in Brittany in the autumn of 1859.
- Maud and Leonora sit around and chat about their academic work and their sex lives—well, about Leonora's sex life, anyway. Maud tells Leonora that she's "trying celibacy" at the moment (18.60), and Leonora suggests that she should try lesbianism instead.
- Later that night, Leonora attempts to seduce Maud, and Maud becomes desperately upset.
- Maud decides that she would feel better if she could talk to someone calm and reasonable, so she tries to give Roland Mitchell a call. Unfortunately, it's Val who picks up the phone when it rings, and she tells Maud to leave them alone.
- The next day, Maud calls James Blackadder's office, hoping to get in touch with Roland through him. Blackadder informs her that he hardly ever sees Roland lately, but he agrees to pass on a message from Maud if he sees him soon.
- Sometime later—maybe even that same morning or afternoon—Maud and Leonora are nearly hit by Mortimer Cropper's car as he drives through Lincoln on his way to Seal Court.
- We readers now tag along with Cropper as he heads to Seal Court, where he attempts to convince Sir George Bailey to sell him whatever it is that he has. (Cropper still isn't sure what Roland Mitchell and Maud Bailey have found.)
- Later that day, Maud bumps into Sir George in Lincoln's Market Square and realizes that Sir George is suddenly furious with her. After Mortimer Cropper's impromptu visit, Sir George has finally realized that the Ash-LaMotte correspondence may be worth a lot of money.
- As Sir George yells at Maud in the street, Leonora comes out of a nearby shop and intervenes. Her presence only makes things worse, though, because Sir George recognizes her as the same woman who showed up on his doorstep the previous summer, asking to see Christabel LaMotte's room.
- Sir George eventually stalks off, and Maud does her best to defuse the situation without explaining any of the particulars to Leonora.
- From there, the narrator whisks us back to James Blackadder's office in the British Museum, where he is just receiving a phone call from Sir George Bailey's lawyer, Toby Byng.
- After the phone call, it's clear that Blackadder now knows a little bit about Mortimer Cropper's visit to Sir George, and he also knows that Sir George may have a pile of valuable Ash documents up for grabs. Blackadder is no fool—he figures that all of this has something to do with Roland Mitchell and Maud Bailey's recent activities—but he still doesn't know exactly what they've been up to.
- Blackadder's assistant, Paola Fonseca, telephones Roland's apartment to warn him that Blackadder is in a stew.
- After talking to Paola and then bickering with Val, Roland leaves the apartment to look for a public telephone. After finding one, and waiting his turn, he calls Maud.
- Leonora answers the phone at Maud's apartment, but Maud soon gets on the line, and she and Roland fill each other in on all of the "disasters" (18.247) that are piling up around them.
- Maud also tells Roland about the new information that has come to light through Ariane Le Minier, and the two of them decide to do something impulsive—they decide to disappear to Brittany together, where they can continue their quest in peace.