Re. Peter Westlake and Tony Ellis "not buying":
It is difficult to defend my theory against Tony's without betraying his trust, so I will here argue but one point that is central to my reading; that there must be some link between KM's past - his childhood -, and his "present" to account for his current circumstance. To have him become involved, ex nihilo, with The Pines, I find difficult to accept and also unnecessary.
The key, to me, lies with the narrator's question about why KM entered the orphanage. One doesn't normally ask such a question at all; it is understood; because the individual in question is an orphan. Which makes the question's qualifier, "... or lose their places?", all the more relevant. That a child could be placed in an orphanage, not because he is an orphan, but because his parents were no longer in a position to financially maintain him, is clearly indicated. Such an unusual phrasing would call attention to itself even in a story by someone other than Wolfe. When Wolfe does it he is calling loudly.
This, as earlier outlined, establishes the link between the estate and KM's childhood. If there were nothing to connect them, then we are left with the prospect of KM being, seemingly at random, drawn into the whole affair, by whatever agency, a tenet unsupported by the text. My theory, if not in all its particulars, at least has some textual support, previously cited. He and his parents lived on the estate until the time of the murder/suicide. Why else did they have to leave, in such dire circumstance, if not in consequence thereof?
Roy