Hugh shook his head.
"Don't know such a bird as that, Jack. Can't think who it can be, nor what they both meant. The 'girl,' indeed! Did they mean Ada, forsooth? I'd like to punch their skulls for daring to name her. I say, let's go to Lister's at once and ask him if he knows a man answering to the name De Vos."
We drove to Wilmot's lodgings in the Albany--he affected aristocratic-bachelor neighborhoods--and found him over a late breakfast, looking very pale and haggard. Hugh attacked him in his straightforward blunt manner.
"What did you go up to Highgate for, last night. Lister, when I thought you were going to bed?"
Wilmot's fork fell on the floor and he stooped to pick it up before answering. Then he looked up with an air of the greatest astonishment.
"Go up to Highgate last night! I! Are you mad, Hugh?"
"I heard your voice last night in a field close by the Highgate Road, or I never was more mistaken in my life," I said.
He turned his face to me: there was the most unaffected surprise and bewilderment written on it as he stared at me.
"Are you out of your senses too?" he asked at last with a loud laugh. "Why, Hugh saw me into bed almost. You must have been wandering, or Mr. Craven's" (my brother-in-law) "wines were too potent for your sober brain."
I was completely at a nonplus. "Do you know that Mr. de Vos is in England?" I said, resolved to try another "dodge."