"Why don't you go home?" I asked.
"I can't," he replied. "I don't know where I live. I've forgotten the
address."
"For heaven's sake," he said, "take me somewhere, and give me something
to eat. I'm literally starving."
"Haven't you any money?" I asked him, as we turned towards the hotel.
"Not a sou," he answered. "We got in here from York, the wife and I,
about eleven. We left our things at the station, and started to hunt for
apartments. As soon as we were fixed, I changed my clothes and came out
for a walk, telling Maud I should be back at one to lunch. Like a fool,
I never took the address, and never noticed the way I was going.
"It's an awful business," he continued. "I don't see how I'm ever going
to find her. I hoped she might stroll down to the Spa in the evening,
and I've been hanging about the gates ever since six. I hadn't the
threepence to go in."
"But have you no notion of the sort of street or the kind of house it
was?" I enquired.
"Not a ghost," he replied. "I left it all to Maud, and didn't trouble."
"Have you tried any of the lodging-houses?" I asked.
"Tried!" he exclaimed bitterly. "I've been knocking at doors, and asking
if Mrs. McQuae lives there steadily all the afternoon, and they slam the
door in my face, mostly without answering. I told a policeman--I thought
perhaps he might suggest something--but the idiot only burst out
laughing, and that made me so mad that I gave him a black eye, and had to
cut. I expect they're on the lookout for me now."
"I went into a restaurant," he continued gloomily, "and tried to get them
to trust me for a steak. But the proprietress said she'd heard that tale
before, and ordered me out before all the other customers. I think I'd
have drowned myself if you hadn't turned up."
After a change of clothes and some supper, he discussed the case more
calmly, but it was really a serious affair. They had shut up their flat,
and his wife's relatives were travelling abroad. There was no one to
whom he could send a letter to be forwarded; there was no one with whom
she would be likely to communicate. Their chance of meeting again in
this world appeared remote.
Nor did it seem to me--fond as he was of his wife, and anxious as he
undoubtedly was to recover her--that he looked forward to the actual
meeting, should it ever arrive, with any too pleasurable anticipation.
"She will think it strange," he murmured reflectively, sitting on the
edge of the bed, and thoughtfully pulling off his socks. "She is sure to
think it strange."
The following day, which was Wednesday, we went to a solicitor, and laid
the case before him, and he instituted inquiries among all the lodging-
house keepers in Scarborough, with the result that on Thursday afternoon
McQuae was restored (after the manner of an Adelphi hero in the last act)
to his home and wife.