The Wanderer in Unknown Realms Read Online Free Page A

ended for me at High Wood.”
    â€œI don’t know where that is.”
    â€œThe Somme. The French call it Bois des Fourcaux. It has something to do with pitchforks. There was a place called Delville Wood nearby, but the men I served with always called it Devil’s Wood. They didn’t clear it after the war. They say thousands of bodies are still buried there.”
    â€œYou left friends there?”
    â€œI left everything there. I don’t suppose it matters, though. The dead are past caring.”
    â€œI don’t know if that’s true,” she said. “I talk to my boys, and I feel them listening. They listen, the dead. They’re always listening. What else is there for them to do?”
    And she said no more.



BROMDUN HALL was a huge, rambling pile set on about five acres, and every inch of the house spoke of slow decay. It was falling into disrepair, and I could feel the drafts as soon as we were in sight of the place. I couldn’t imagine that one small woman would be able to maintain a house of that size, even with some help from its resident, but Mrs. Gissing said most of the rooms were used for storage and nothing more. Her main duties consisted of cooking three meals a day, doing laundry, and keeping a handful of rooms in a clean and habitable condition. Mr. Maulding, it seems, made few other demands upon her. She displayed considerable fondness toward him, though, and seemed genuinely concerned for his welfare. When I asked if she had considered calling the police at any point, she replied that Mr. Quayle in London had expressly ordered her not to do so. It was, it seemed, to Quayle that she had first reported her concerns about her master. Maulding’s nephew, Mr. Forbes, had learned of his absence only later, when he called at the house, as he was occasionally wont to do when he needed money, and Mrs. Gissing was forced to inform him of the situation.
    What I did learn was that Maulding had made a number of sojourns into London in the months before his disappearance, trips of which Quayle appeared to have been entirely unaware, for he had not mentioned them to me. Mrs. Gissing had been surprised by this change in her master’s routine but had made no comment upon it. On such occasions, a cab would collect him at the door first thing in the morning, deliver him to the station, and then return him to his home following the arrival of the last train from London. He had made three such trips and had always informed Mrs. Gissing the day before of his intention to travel.
    â€œIs it possible that he might have gone to London without your knowledge and simply not have returned?” I asked.
    â€œNo,” she said, and her tone brooked no contradiction. “He always got Ted to take him to the station, and bring him home after, and he always made his timetable known to us. He’s a delicate man,Mr. Maulding. He had polio as a boy, and it left him with a twisted right leg. He can’t walk very far without it causing him pain. It’s one of the reasons why he has traveled so rarely. There’s just too much discomfort in it for him.”
    â€œAnd do you have any idea where in London he might have been going, or whom he might have been seeing?”
    â€œHe didn’t share such matters with me,” she said.
    â€œHad he any enemies?” I asked.
    â€œLord, no,” she said. “He had no friends, neither—not because there was anything wrong with him,” she hastened to add. “He just had all that he needed here.”
    She gestured to the house, which was now looming above us.
    â€œThis was—” She corrected herself. “This is his home. He didn’t want to go out into the world, so he found a way to bring the world to him.”
    It was an odd thing to say, and I didn’t comprehend her meaning until I entered the house itself, and then I understood.
    There were books everywhere: on the floors, on the stairs,