The Wanderer in Unknown Realms Page 4

  I backed away, and as I moved the shadows advanced once again, and the dark entity moved with them. Faster now they came, and my light grew increasingly ineffectual, the darkness encroaching upon its pool of illumination, slowly smothering it from without. Soon it would be but a glimmer behind the glass, and then it would be gone entirely.

  I flung the poker into the darkness. I acted without thinking, operating purely on instinct, aiming for that mass of shards and angles. The poker spun once in the air, and the heavy handle struck at the center of the black form. With a sound like a million delicate crystals shattering in unison, the shadows rippled in response to some concussive force. I was thrown backward and struck my head hard against the floor, but before I lost consciousness I thought I saw that deeper blackness collapse in upon itself, and a hole was briefly ripped in the fabric of space and time. Through it I glimpsed unknown constellations and a black sun.

  And the face of Lionel Maulding, screaming.

  IV

  MRS. GISSING arrived shortly after seven, an older man behind her whom I took, correctly as it turned out, to be Mr. Willox. They found me awake and seated at a table in the library, a cup of tea steaming before me and more in the pot nearby. Mrs. Gissing seemed rather put out by this, as though in venturing to provide for myself I had usurped her natural place in the universe and, more to the point, threatened her livelihood, for if men began to make cups of tea for themselves then soon they might well attempt to cook meals, and do laundry, and next thing poor Mrs. Gissing and her kind would find themselves out on the streets begging for pennies. As if to ensure that this would not come to pass without a struggle, she prepared to bustle her way to the kitchen to make bacon, eggs, and toast, even though I assured her that I was not hungry.

  “Did you not sleep well?” she asked.

  “No, I did not,” I said, then ventured a question. “Have you ever spent the night in this house, Mrs. Gissing?”

  I should, perhaps, have phrased the question a little more delicately, as Mrs. Gissing appeared to feel that her reputation as a widow of good standing was being impugned. After some awkward apologies on my part, she chose to take the question in the spirit in which it was asked, and confessed that she had never spent a night under Mr. Maulding’s roof.

  “Did he ever complain of noises, or disturbances?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure what you mean, sir.”

  I wasn’t sure what I meant, either. The mind plays odd tricks, often to protect itself from harm, and it had already begun the process of consigning the events of the previous night to that place between what we see and what we dream.

  “There was something in my bathtub last night,” I said. “It was a creature of some sort.”

  Willox spoke for the first time.

  “A rat?” he said. “We’ve had them, sir. They find ways into old houses like this. I’ll lay down some poison.”

  “No, it wasn’t a rat. To be honest, I’m not sure what it was. It fled down the plug hole as the water level dropped. It was more of a crustacean, I think.”

  “A crustacean?”

  “Like a crab, or a lobster.”

  Mrs. Gissing looked at me as though I were mad, as well she might have done. Willox appeared uncertain, and could well have been considering whether people in London might enjoy a sense of humor different from, and stranger than, his own.

  “Who would put a lobster in your bath?” said Mrs. Gissing. “Certainly not I.”

  She seemed ready to take umbrage once again, so I assured her that I was not accusing her of being in the habit of putting lobsters in the bathtubs of strange men.

  “And then,” I continued, “I was woken by what appeared to be a presence in the house.”

  “A . . . presence?” said Willox.

  “Yes. I can’t describe it any better than that.”

  “Are you talking about a ghost, sir?”

  “I don’t believe in ghosts,” I said. “Did Mr. Maulding believe in ghosts?”

  “I can’t recall him ever mentioning the subject to me.” He turned to Mrs. Gissing, who shrugged and shook her head.

  “I ask because he seems to have recently begun building a library of the occult, which suggests that something might have excited his interest in such matters. He never mentioned disturbances in the house to you?”

  “No.”

  “Did he appear distressed in recent weeks, or seem tired and anxious to you?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think I’m mad, Mrs. Gissing?”

  For the first time, she smiled. “I couldn’t possibly say, sir. But this is a big, old house, and big, old houses are filled with creaks and groans that can seem strange to those who aren’t used to them. I’ll go and make you that breakfast, sir, and you’ll feel better for it.”

  “What about you, Mr. Willox?” I said. “Do you doubt my sanity?”

  “I don’t know you well enough to be certain, sir, but you look sane enough to me. But, like Mrs. Gissing says, it takes time to get used to a strange house, especially one as old as this. Even I sometimes find myself looking over my shoulder when I’m alone in it. It’s the way of such places, isn’t it? They wear their history heavily.”

  I asked him about Mr. Maulding, but he could add nothing to what Mrs. Gissing had told me. He did ask about his wages, and I told him that I’d arrange for Mr. Quayle to make the payments. He seemed satisfied with that, although he might not have been had he known Quayle personally. Quayle rarely paid quickly, and Maulding’s financial obligations to his domestic staff would have been very low on Quayle’s list of priorities. The fact that he had paid me in advance was a sign of just how anxious he was to ensure Maulding’s safe return.

  Willox departed to work on the grounds. I heard the sound of bangs and crashes from the kitchen, and the smell of frying bacon began to waft, not unpleasantly, into the library. Surrounded by these noises and scents, these indicators of normality, I became less and less certain of what I had witnessed the previous night. It was not unnatural. The undisturbed mind will tend to seek the most rational explanation for an occurrence: to do otherwise is to sow the seeds of madness. I had a troubled mind, fractured by experience, but I was not yet ready to surrender entirely to disquiet.

  It was about this time that there came a knock on the door. Mrs. Gissing being otherwise occupied, I answered it myself and found the boy from the post office waiting with a telegram for me. I gave him a shilling for his troubles, having nothing smaller, and sent him on his way. I wondered if I could claim the shilling from Quayle as an expense. Perhaps I should have asked for a receipt.

  The telegram was from Fawnsley. Its brevity made clear that he was paying by the word and counting every one. There was no greeting, merely an insincere expression of regret that no confirmed address could be found for Dunwidge & Daughter, although he had heard that they operated from somewhere near the King’s Road in Chelsea, and a final, terse addition:

  TEN THOUSAND POUNDS WITHDRAWN FROM MAULDING FUNDS LAST MONTH STOP NOT APPROVED BY QUAYLE STOP INVESTIGATE STOP

  Ten thousand pounds was more than a small fortune. I had found a safe in Maulding’s library, but I had no way of accessing its contents. It was possible that the money was still in there, but if Maulding had withdrawn it without going through Quayle, as he was perfectly entitled to do, even if it was not according to his habit, this suggested that the funds were required for some purpose that he did not wish to share with his lawyer, and one with a hint of urgency to it.

  In my experience, unusual patterns of spending gave rise to certain speculations about the reason for them. For example, a gradual seepage of money, slowly rising in quantity and instances of occurrence, might lead one to suspect a gambling problem; larger but more consistent sums suggested a newfound interest in a woman, or a tart. A single significant payment, particularly the kind that a man chose not to share with his lawyer, might be the consequence of an investment opportunity of dubious legality, or an effort to make a pro
blem go away.

  But from what I knew of Lionel Maulding, he had no particular interest in gambling or women and therefore was unlikely to be troubled by the problems that might arise from overindulgence in either. No, the ten thousand pounds suggested a purchase of some kind, but Maulding already had one huge house: he didn’t need another. Neither was there a sudden proliferation of motorcars or yachts in the immediate vicinity of Bromdun Hall.

  So: on what did Lionel Maulding spend his money as a matter of habit?

  Lionel Maulding spent his money on books.

  What kind of book, or books, would cost a man ten thousand pounds?

  A rare book. A very rare book.

  I ate my breakfast, confirmed the times of trains with Mrs. Gissing, and prepared to return to London.

  V

  I HAD rarely, if ever, darkened the door of Stanford’s, mainly because there was nothing in there that I felt qualified to read. I also feared this would be recognized the moment I crossed its threshold, and some officious clerk would appear from behind a counter piled high with works on physics and the nature of the atom, politely steer me back out of the door, and point me in the direction of a newsstand liberally stocked with illustrated weeklies. Instead, a very polite young man with the build of a good front-row rugby player showed me to a seat in a cluttered office and listened as I explained my purpose. I had brought with me some of the receipts for Maulding’s recent purchases, but the handwriting on them was abysmal, and those words that I could read meant nothing to me.

  The young man, who introduced himself as Richards, could have made a decent career out of the interpretation of ancient Sanskrit if the rugby or science didn’t work out, for the errant handwriting gave him not a moment’s trouble.

  “That’s Old Mr. Blair’s hand,” he explained. “I’ve got to know it well over the years.”

  “Is Mr. Blair available?” I asked.

  His face assumed an awkward expression.

  “I’m afraid Old Mr. Blair passed away some weeks ago.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “He was ninety-two.”

  “I’m still sorry to hear it.”

  “The original Mr. Stanford gave Mr. Blair his job,” Richards explained. “He was the last link to the store’s foundation. His handwriting was always terrible, though.”

  He returned his attention to the list.

  “There’s a definite pattern to these purchases,” he said.

  “In what way?”

  “Well, you have a copy of the Leibniz–Clarke correspondence, first published in English in 1717, although this is obviously a later edition. The main interest in them for most readers is a dispute over the nature of space and, indeed, time. Here’s Mach’s The Analysis of Sensations from 1897. Mach suggested that only sensations were real, and nothing else, if I understand him right, although it’s not entirely my area.”

  He read out some more names that meant little to me—“Planck . . . Einstein, quite the coming chap”—and then frowned.

  “Hullo,” he said. “He ordered various pieces by William James. Some of these are a bit outside our usual remit: Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research, Volume 3; The Varieties of Religious Experience; The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. That’s a curious one. Not uninteresting, but certainly curious.”

  I waited. Sometimes, my own patience astounded me.

  Richards smiled apologetically. “Sorry. Fascinating stuff. James refers to something called the ‘multiverse,’ a hypothetical set of possible universes, of which this universe is just one part.”

  “And what does he think is in these other universes?”

  “I’m not sure he’s got that far, but I can’t confess to being an expert on James. Judging from Mr. Maulding’s list, though, I’d guess that he’d become interested in the nature of reality. Complex business, especially for the general reader.”

  I thanked him. I wasn’t sure there was any more to be learned here, or any more that I might have a chance of understanding.

  “By the way,” I said, “have you ever heard of a bookseller called Dunwidge, or Dunwidge & Daughter, in Chelsea?”

  “Can’t say that I have,” said Richards. “We can ask Young Mr. Blair, though. He knows every bookseller in London.”

  He led me up various flights of stairs to a small section devoted entirely to works of psychology. A slight man in a dark suit, who must have been eighty if he was a day, was snoozing quietly behind a till.

  “Old Mr. Blair’s brother?” I inquired.

  “Strangely enough, no,” said Richards. “They weren’t even related, and they didn’t get on at all. Young Mr. Blair wouldn’t even contribute half a shilling for the wreath.”

  Mr. Richards gently woke Young Mr. Blair, who took the disturbance well. In fact, he seemed rather pleased that somebody wanted to talk to him. Perhaps at his age he was just glad to have woken up at all.

  “This is Mr. Soter, Mr. Blair. He has a question about a bookseller.”

  Young Mr. Blair smiled and mumbled a string of words, out of which I managed to pick two, “delighted” and “help,” which boded well.

  “I was wondering if you knew anything of a bookseller in Chelsea named Dunwidge?” I asked.

  Young Mr. Blair’s face darkened. He scowled. He shook his head. An index finger appeared and was waved in an admonitory manner. Another string of muttered words emerged from his lips, blending into one long caw of disapproval. Eventually, spotting that I was somewhat at a loss to make any sense of what he was saying, he managed to force out some coherent, if short, sentences.

  “Dreadful man,” he said. “Daughter worse. Umm . . . Occultists! Fire and brimstone sorts. Quite. Quite. Old books. Nasty books. Not science. Not science at all.”

  He leaned forward and tapped his finger on the counter.

  “Mumbo jumbo,” he said, enunciating each syllable carefully.

  “I need an address for them,” I said. “I’ve been told they’re in Chelsea, perhaps on the King’s Road.”

  Young Mr. Blair returned to his mutterings, but he found a scrap of paper and, in elegant copperplate, wrote down an address for me. I thanked him for his help and prepared to leave, but he stood and gripped my arm with a surprisingly strong hand.

  “Stay away from ’em,” he urged. “Bad sorts, both of ’em, but the daughter most of all!”

  I thanked him again, and he released his grip and resumed his seat. His eyes closed, and he returned to his slumbers.

  Richards was quite impressed.

  “You know,” he said, “I haven’t seen him that excited since Old Mr. Blair died . . . ”

  VI

  I WENT next to Chancery to report my progress, or lack thereof, to Quayle, but he was not in his chambers. Only Fawnsley was present, scratching disconsolately with his fountain pen at a document thick with legalese, like a sick hen scrabbling for a piece of stray corn in the dirt.

  “Took your time getting here,” he said, in lieu of a greeting.

  “What do you mean by that?” I replied. “I’ve only been gone for one night. I’m not a miracle worker.”

  Fawnsley tapped the calendar on his desk. It was made of various blocks of ivory that could be turned to change the day, the month, and the year. The calendar read 15 October.

  “Your calendar is wrong,” I said.

  “My calendar is never wrong,” he answered.

  I sat down heavily in a chair by the wall. I had lost a week. It wasn’t possible. It simply wasn’t possible. I had taken the train on the eighth. I had the ticket in my pocket. I had kept it so that Quayle wouldn’t question my expenses. I searched my pockets and my wallet for the ticket, but it was gone.

  “You look ill,” he said.

  “Trouble sleeping,” I said. I stared at the calendar. Not possible. Not possible.

  Fawnsley chewed a question silently in his mouth. I could actually see his jaws working.

  “You’re not .
. . ?”

  He trailed off. The shadow of Craiglockhart hung over us as surely as if the military psychiatric hospital itself lay outside Quayle’s chambers, and the sun was setting behind it.

  “No,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  He didn’t look as though he believed me. I tried not to look as though I cared.

  “Did you get my telegram?” he asked.

  “I did. Ten thousand pounds: a man could buy a lot with that kind of money.”

  “Well, have you discovered what the man in question did buy with it?”

  “Since you informed me about it only this morning, I may need a little more time,” I said.

  Again, Fawnsley gave me that look. I corrected myself. I didn’t want Fawnsley reporting back to Quayle that I was troubled, or unreliable. I needed the money.

  “Sorry,” I said, making the best of a bad situation. “I meant that I have only this morning received some information, based on what was contained in the telegram.”

  “And what is this great leap?”

  “I think Maulding might have spent the money on books.”

  “Books?” squawked Fawnsley. “He could buy a whole bloody library of books for ten thousand pounds.”

  “He already has a library,” I said. “When a man has as many books as Maulding, he stops being interested in the ones that are easy to acquire, because he already has them. Instead, he starts seeking out rare volumes, and the rarer they are, the more they cost.”

  “And what kind of rare volumes are we talking about?”

  But before I could reply, Fawnsley was considering his own question.

  “Surely it’s not literature of a depraved nature? He never struck me as the type.”