Kitabı oku: «The Brightener», sayfa 13

"No. After to-day I will never see her again, voluntarily, as that is your wish."

"Good! What time to-morrow will you talk with me?"

"At any time you name."

"At this same hour, then, in this same room."

"So be it. If the medium consents."

"I shall make her consent. And you and I will agree upon someone else to bring us together, when she must go elsewhere, as I can see through her mind that she soon must. Good-bye, dearest husband, for twenty-four long hours. Yet it isn't really good-bye, for I am seldom far from you. Now that you know, you will feel me near. I – "

The voice seemed to fade. The last words were a faint whisper. The new sentence died as it began. The medium's eyelids quivered. Her flat breast rose and fell. The "influence" was gone!

CHAPTER V
THE BARGAIN

That night was one of the worst in my life. I was so fond of Robert Lorillard, and I'd grown to love Joyce Arnold so well that the breaking of their love idyll hurt as if it had been my own.

Never shall I forget the hour when we three talked together at my flat after that séance at the Savoy, or the look on those two faces as Robert and Joyce agreed to part! Even I had acquiesced at first in that decision – but only while I was still half stunned by the shock of the great surprise, and thrilled by the seeming miracle. At sight of the two I loved quietly giving each other up, making sacrifice of their hearts on a cold altar, I had a revulsion of feeling.

I jumped up, and broke out desperately.

"I don't believe it's true! Something tells me it isn't! Don't spoil your lives without making sure."

"How can we be surer than we are?" Robert asked. "You recognized June's voice."

"I thought then that I did," I amended. "I was excited. Now, I don't trust my own impression."

"But the perfume of La France roses? Even if the woman could have found out other things, how should she know about a small detail like June's favourite flower? How could she have the perfume already in her room when we came – as if she were sure of our coming there – which of course she couldn't have been," Robert argued.

"I don't see how she could have been sure," I had to grant him. "I don't see through any of it. But they're so deadly clever, these people – the fraudulent ones, I mean. They couldn't impress the public as they do if they weren't up to every trick. All I say is, wait. Don't decide irrevocably yet. The way the voice talked didn't seem to me a bit like June. Only the tones were like hers; and they might have been imitated by anybody who'd known her, or who'd been coached by someone."

"Dear Princess, you're so anxious for our happiness that I fear you're thinking of impossible things. Who could have an object in parting Joyce and me? I can think of no one. Still less could this stranger from America have a motive, even if she lied, and really knew who I was before she spoke to us at the Savoy."

"I admit it does sound just as impossible as you say!" I agreed, forlornly. "But things that sound impossible may be possible. And we must find out. In justice to Joyce and yourself – even in justice to June's spirit, which I can't think would be so selfish – we must find out!"

"What would you suggest?" Joyce asked rather timidly. But there was a faint colour in her cheeks, like a spark in the ashes of hope.

"Detectives!" I said. "Or rather a detective. I know a good man. He served me very well once, when some of our family treasures disappeared from Courtenaye Abbey, and it rather looked as if I'd stolen them myself. He can learn without any shadow of doubt when Miss Reardon did land, and when she came to London. Besides, he's sure to have colleagues on the other side who can give him all sorts of details about the woman: how she's thought of at home, whether she's ever been caught out as a cheat, and so on. Will you both consent to that? Because if you will, I'll 'phone to my man this moment."

They did consent. At least, Robert did, for Joyce left the decision entirely to him. She was so afraid, poor girl, of seeming determined to hold him at any price, that she would hardly speak. As for Robert, though he felt that I was justified in getting to the bottom of things, I saw that he believed in the truth of the message he'd received. If it were not the spirit of June who had come to command his allegiance, he still had a right to his warm earthly happiness with Joyce Arnold. But if it were indeed her spirit who claimed all he had to give for the rest of life, it was a fair debt, and he would pay in full.

I received the detective (my old friend Smith) alone, in another room, when he came. The necessary discussion would have been torture for Robert and intolerable for Joyce. When Smith left I had at least this encouragement to give the two: it would be simple to learn what I wished to learn about Miss Reardon, on both sides of the Atlantic.

That was better than nothing. But it didn't make the dark watches of the night less dark. I had an ugly presentiment that Smith, smart as he was, would get hold of little to help us, if anything. Yet at the same time I felt that there was something to get hold of – somewhere!

If I hadn't implored them to wait, Joyce and Robert would have decided to publish the news that their marriage (which somehow everyone knew about!) would "not take place." This concession they did make to me; but they agreed together that they mustn't meet. My cheerful flat felt like a large grave fitted with all modern conveniences, when it had been deprived of Robert. And Joyce trying to be normal and not to shed gloom over me, her employer, was too agonizing!

Robert didn't even write to Joyce. I suppose he couldn't trust himself. But he wrote to me, and gave the history of his second interview with Miss Reardon. June had come again, and had reminded him of incidents about which, he said, "no outsider could possibly know."

"I can't help believing now that there are more things in heaven and earth than I'd dreamed of in my philosophy," he ended his letter. "There's no getting round the fact that what I should have thought a miracle has happened. The spirit of June has claimed me from the 'other side.' And even if I were brutal enough, disloyal enough, to disown the claim, to pretend to Joyce and myself that I didn't believe, neither Joyce nor I could have a moment's happiness, married. She knows that as well as I do. As my wife her life would be spoiled. June would always stand between us, separating us one from the other. I think I should be driven mad. Joyce's heart would be broken!

"I've promised to talk with June through a medium every day. Miss Reardon has to leave London in a fortnight, but June's voice asked me to go to Opal Fawcett. You remember my telling you that Opal suggested this long ago, saying that June wanted to get in touch with me? I wouldn't hear of it then, because at that time I had no reason to believe in the genuineness of visits from one world to another. Now it's different. I shall go to Opal.

"Tell Joyce that I'll write her to-night. It won't be a letter such as I should wish to write. But she will understand."

Yes, she would understand! One could always trust Joyce to understand, even if she were on the rack!

It was the next day – the third day after the unforgettable one at the Savoy – when my tame detective brought his budget. He would have come even sooner, he said, if there hadn't been a delay in the cable service.

Miss Reardon, Smith learned, had never been exposed as an impostor. She was respected personally, and had attained a certain amount of fame both in Boston (where she lived) and New York. She had been several times invited to visit England, but had never been able to accept until now. She had arrived by the ship and at the time stated. When we met her at the Savoy, she could not have been more than two hours in London. Therefore her story seemed to be true in every detail, and what was more, she had not been met at ship or train by any one.

I simply hated poor dear little Smith. He ought to have nosed out something against the woman! What are detectives for?

"You've been an angel to fight for my happiness," Joyce said. "I adore you for it. And so does Robert, I know – though he mustn't put such feelings into words, or even have feelings if he can help it. There's nothing more to fight about now. The best thing I can pray for is that Robert may forget our – dream, and that he may be happy in this other dream – of June."

"And you?" I asked. "What prayer do you say for yourself? Do you pray to forget?"

"Oh, no!" she answered. "I don't want to forget. I wouldn't forget, if I could. You see, it wasn't a dream to me. It was – it always will be – the best thing in my life – the glory of my life. In my heart I shall live it all over and over again till I die. I don't mind suffering. I've seen so much pain in the war, and the courage that went with it. I shall have my roses – not La France; deep red roses they'll be, red as blood, and sharp with thorns, but sweet as heaven. There!" and her voice changed. "Now you know, Princess! We'll never speak of this again, because we don't need to, do we?"

"No – o," I agreed. "You're a grand girl, Joyce, worth two of – But never mind! And I'll try to make you as happy as I can."

She thanked me for that; she was always thanking me for something. Soon, however, she broke the news that she must go away. She loved me and her work, yet she couldn't stop in London; she just couldn't. Not as things were. If Robert had been turning his back on England she might have stayed. But his promise to communicate with June daily through Opal bound him to London. Joyce thought that she might try India. She had friends there in the Army and in the Civil Service. She might do useful work as a nurse among the purdah women and their babies, where mortality was very high, she'd heard. "I must be busy – busy every minute of the day," she cried, hiding her anguish with that smile of hers which I'd learned to love.

What Robert had said to her in his promised letter, the only one he wrote, she didn't tell. I knew no more than that it had been written and received. Probably it wasn't an ideal letter for a girl to wear over her heart, hidden under her dress. Robert would have felt it unfair to write that kind of letter. All the same I'm sure that Joyce did wear it there!

As for me, I was absolutely sick about everything. I felt as if my two dearest friends had been put in prison on a false charge, and as though – if I hadn't cotton wool for a brain – I ought to be able to get them out.

"There's a clue to the labyrinth if I could see it," I told myself so often that I was tired of the thought. And the most irritating part was that now and then I seemed to catch a half glimpse of the clue dangling back and forth like a thread of spider's web close to my eyes. But invariably it was gone before I'd really caught sight of it. And all the good that concentrating did was to bump my intelligence against the pale image of Opal Fawcett.

I didn't understand how Opal, even with the best – or worst – will in the world, could have stage-managed this drama, though I should have liked to think she had done it.

Miss Reardon frankly admitted having heard of Opal (who hadn't heard of her), among those interested in spiritism, during the last few years; but as the American woman had never before been in England, and Opal had never crossed to America, the Boston medium hardly needed to say that she'd never met Miss Fawcett. As for correspondence, if there were a secret between the pair, of course they'd both deny it. And so, though I longed to fling a challenge to Opal, I saw that it would be stupid to put the two women, if guilty, on their guard. Besides, how could they, through any correspondence, have contrived the things that had happened?

Suddenly, through the darkness of my doubts, shot a lightning flash: the thought of Jim Courtenaye.

Superficially judging, Sir James Courtenaye, wild man of the West, but lately transplanted, appeared the last person to assist in working out a psychic problem. All the same a great longing to prop myself against him (figuratively!) overwhelmed me; and for fear the impulse might pass, I wired at once:

Please come if you can. Wish to consult you.

Elizabeth Di Miramare.

Jim was, as usual, hovering between Courtenaye Coombe and Courtenaye Abbey. There were hours between us, even by telegraph, and the best I expected was an answer in the afternoon to my morning's message. But at six o'clock his name was announced, and he walked into the drawing room of my flat as large as life, or a size or two larger.

"Good gracious!" I gasped. "You've come?"

"You're not surprised, are you?" he retorted.

"Why, yes," I said. "I didn't suppose – "

"Then you're not so brainy as I thought you were," said he. "Also you didn't look at time-tables. What awful catastrophe has happened to you, Elizabeth, to make you want to see me?"

I couldn't help laughing, although I didn't feel in the least like laughter; and besides, he had no right to call me Elizabeth.

"Nothing has happened to me," I explained. "It's to somebody else – "

"Oh, somebody you've been trying to 'brighten,' I suppose?"

"Yes, and failed," I confessed.

He scowled.

"A man?"

"A man and his girl." Whereupon I emptied the whole story into the bowl of Jim's intelligence.

"Do you see light?" I asked at last.

"No," he returned, stolidly. "I don't."

Oh, how disappointed I was! I'd hardly known how much I'd counted on Jim till I got that answer.

"But I might find some," he added, when he'd watched the effect of his words on me.

"How?" I implored.

"There's only one way, if any, to get the kind of light you want," said Jim. "It might be a difficult way, and it might be a long one."

"Yet you think light could be got? The kind of light I want?" I clasped my hands and deliberately tried to look irresistible.

"Who can tell? The one thing certain is, that trying would take all my time away from everything else, maybe for weeks, maybe for months."

His tone made my face feel the way faces look in those awful concave mirrors: about three feet in length and three inches in width.

"Then you won't undertake the task?" I quavered.

"I don't say that," grudged Jim.

"You wouldn't say it if you could meet Joyce Arnold," I coaxed. "She's such a darling girl. Poor child, she's out now, pulling strings for a job in India."

"Meeting her wouldn't make any difference to me," said Jim. "It's for you I'd try to bring off this stunt – if I tried at all."

"Oh, then do it for me," I broke out.

"That's what I was working up to," he replied. "I wouldn't say 'yes' and I wouldn't say 'no' till I knew what you'd do for me in return if I succeeded."

"Why, I'd thank you a thousand times!" I cried. "I'd – I'd never forget you as long as I live."

"There's not much in that for me. I hate being thanked for things. And what good would it do me to be remembered by you at a distance, perhaps married to some beast or other?"

"But if I marry I sha'n't marry a beast," I sweetly assured my forty-fourth cousin four times removed.

"I should think any man you married a beast, if he wasn't me," said Jim.

"Good heavens!" I breathed. "Surely you don't want to marry me!"

"Surely I do," he retorted. "And what's more, you know it jolly well."

"I don't."

"You do. You've known it ever since that affair of the yacht. If you hadn't, you wouldn't have asked me to hide the Scarlett kid. I knew then that you knew. And you'd be a fool if you hadn't known – which you're not."

I said no more, because – I was found out! I had known. Only, I hadn't let myself think about it much – until lately perhaps. But now and then I had thought. I'd thought quite a good deal.

When he had me silenced, Jim went on:

"Just like a woman! You're willing to let me sacrifice all my engagements and inclinations to start off on a wild-goose chase for you, while you give nothing in return – "

"But I would!" I cut in.

"What would you give?"

"What do you want?"

"Yourself, of course."

"Oh!"

"If you'll marry me in case I find out that someone's been playing a devil's trick on Lorillard," said Jim, "I'll do – my damnedest! How's that?"

I shrugged my shoulders, and looked debonair; which was easy, as my nose is that shape. Yet my heart pounded.

"You seem to think the sacrifice of your engagements and inclinations worth a big price!"

"I know it's a big price," he granted. "But every man has his price. That happens to be mine. You may not have to pay, however, even in the event of my success. Because, in the course of my operations I may do something that'll land me in quod. In that case, you're free. I wouldn't mate you with a gaol bird."

I stared, and gasped.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you know me intimately enough to be sure that once I'm on the warpath I stop at nothing?" he challenged.

"I don't think you'd be easy to stop," I said. "That's why I've called on you to help me. But really, I can't understand what there is in the thing to send you to prison."

"You don't need to understand," snorted Jim. "I sha'n't get there if I can keep out, because that would be the way to lose my prize. But I suppose from your point of view the great thing is for your two dearest friends to be happy ever after."

"Not at a terrible cost to you," I just stopped myself from saying. Instead, I hedged: "You frighten me!" I cried. "And you make me curious —fearfully curious. What can you be meaning to do?"

"That's my business!" said Jim.

"You've got a plan – already?"

"Yes, I've got a plan – already, if – "

"If what?"

"If you agree to the bargain. Do you?"

I nodded.

He seized my hand and squeezed it hard.

"Then I'm off," he said. "You won't hear from me till I have news, good or bad. And meanwhile I have no address."

With that he was gone.

I felt as if he had left me alone in the dark.

CHAPTER VI
THE LAST SÉANCE

The only way in which I could keep Joyce with me for a little while longer was by pretending to be ill. That fetched her. And it wasn't all pretense, either, because I was horribly worried, not only about her and Robert, but about Jim. And about myself.

I said not a word to Joyce of Jim and his mission. So far as she knew I'd abandoned hope – as she had. We heard nothing from Robert, or concerning him, and each day that built itself up was a gloomier cul de sac than the last.

Bye and bye there came the end of Miss Reardon's fortnight in London. "Now Robert will be turned over to Opal," I groaned to myself. And I was sure that the same thought was in the mind of Joyce. Just one or two days more, and after that a long monotony of bondage for him, year in and year out!

As I waked in the morning with these words on my lips, Joyce herself knocked, playing nurse, with a tray of coffee and toast.

"I would have let you sleep on," she said, "but a note has come by messenger for you, with 'Urgent' on the envelope in such a nice handwriting I felt you'd want to have it. So I brought your breakfast at the same time."

The nice handwriting was Jim's. He had vowed not to write till there was "news, good or bad." My fingers trembled as I tore open the letter. I read:

Make Lorillard invite you and Miss Arnold and your fiancé to a séance before Miss Reardon goes. It will have to be to-day or to-morrow. Don't take "no" for an answer. Manage it somehow. If you insist, Lorillard will force Reardon to consent. When the stunt's fixed up, let me hear at once.

Yours, Jim.

L – is at his flat. You know the address.

By Jove! This was a facer! Could I bring the thing off? But I simply must. I knew Jim well enough to be sure that the clock of fate had been wound up by him, ready to strike, and that it wouldn't strike if I didn't obey orders.

I pondered for a minute whether or no to tell Joyce, but quickly decided no. The request must first come from Robert.

I braced myself with hot coffee, and thought hard. Then I asked Joyce for writing materials, and scribbled a note to Robert. I wrote:

There is a reason why you must get us invited by Miss Reardon to the last séance she gives before leaving. When I say "us," I mean Joyce as well as myself, and the man I've just promised to marry. I know this will seem shocking to you, perhaps impossible, as you agreed not to see Joyce again, "voluntarily." But oh, Robert, trust me, and make it possible for the sake of a brave girl who once saved your life at the risk of her own. Seeing her this time won't count as "voluntary" on your part. It is necessary.

When the note was ready I said to Joyce that I'd just had news of Robert Lorillard from a great friend of mine who was much interested in his welfare. This news necessitated my writing Robert, and as I was still in bed I must request her to send the letter by hand.

"Go out to the nearest post office yourself, and have a messenger take it," I directed.

While she was gone I got up, bathed, and put on street dress for the first time since I'd been "playing 'possum."

I felt much better, I explained when Joyce came back, and added that, later in the day, I might even be inclined "for a walk or something."

"If you're so well as that, you'll be ready to let me go to India soon, won't you, dear?" she hinted. No doubt my few words about Robert, and the sight of his name on a letter, had made the poor girl desperate under her calm, controlled manner.

I was desperate, too, knowing that her whole future depended on the success of Jim's plan. If it failed, I should have to let her go, and all would be over!

"You must do what's best for you," I answered. "But don't talk about it now. Wait till to-morrow."

Joyce was dumb.

Hours passed, and no reply from Robert. I began to fear he'd gone away – or that he was hideously offended. We'd got through a pretence of luncheon, when at last a messenger came. Thank heaven, Robert's handwriting was on the envelope!

He wrote:

I don't understand your wish, dear Princess. It seems like deliberate torture of Joyce and me that she should be present when I am visited by the spirit of June – for that is what actually happens. June materializes. I see her, as well as hear her voice. Can Joyce bear this? You seem to think she can, and so I must. For you are a friend of friends, and you wouldn't put me to such a test without the best of reasons.

I expected that Miss Reardon would refuse to receive strangers on such an occasion. But rather to my surprise she has consented, and a séance is arranged for this evening at nine o'clock in her rooms. To-morrow would have been too late, as she is leaving for the south of France, to stay with some American millionairess at Cannes, who hopes to get into touch with a son on the Other Side. You see, I don't use that old, cold word "dead." I couldn't now I know how near, and how like their earthly selves, are those who go beyond.

So you are engaged to be married! Don't think I'm indifferent because I leave mention of your news till the last. I'm deeply interested. Bless you, Princess!

Yours ever, R. L.

I read this letter, destroying it (in case Joyce became importunate), and then broke it to her that Robert earnestly wished us to attend the last séance with Miss Reardon.

She turned sickly white.

"I can't go!" she almost sobbed. "I simply can't."

Then I said that it would hurt Robert horribly if she didn't. He wouldn't have asked such a thing without the strongest motive. I would be with her, I went on; and tried to pull her thoughts up out of tragic gulfs by springing the news of my engagement upon her. It may have sounded irrelevant, almost heartlessly so, but it braced the girl. And she little guessed that the engagement would not exist save for Robert and her!

I 'phoned Jim at the address on his letter, a house in Westminster which – when I happened to notice – was in the same street as Opal Fawcett's. It was a relief to hear his voice answer "Hello!" for he had demanded immediate knowledge of our plans; and goodness knew what mysterious preparations for his coup he might have to elaborate.

He would meet us at the Savoy, he said, at 8:45, and I could introduce him to Miss Reardon before the séance began.

Joyce and I started at 8:30, in a taxi, having made a mere stage pretence of dinner. We hardly spoke on the way, but I held her hand, and pressed it now and then.

Jim was waiting for us just inside the revolving doors of the hotel.

"I'd have liked to come for you in a car," he said aside to me, "but I thought it would be hard on Miss Arnold – and maybe on you – to have more of my society than need be, you know!"

"Why on me?" I hastily inquired.

His black eyes blazed into mine.

"Well, I've sort of blackmailed you, haven't I?"

"Have you?"

"Into this engagement of ours."

"Oh, I haven't got time to think of that just now!" I snapped. "Let's go to Miss Reardon's rooms."

We went. Jim said no more, except to mention that Captain Lorillard had already gone up.

Joyce may have imagined Jim to be the "great friend interested in Robert's welfare," but as for me, I wondered how he knew Robert by sight. Then I scolded myself: "Silly one! Hasn't he been watching – playing detective for you?"

It was poignant, remembering the last time when Robert, Joyce, and I had met in Miss Reardon's sitting room – the last day of their happiness. But we greeted each other quietly, like old friends, though Joyce's heart must have contracted at sight of the man's changed face. All the renewed youth and joyous manhood her love had given him had burned out of his eyes. He looked as he'd looked when I saw him that day at River Orchard Cottage.

Miss Reardon was slightly nervous in manner, and flushed like a girl when I introduced Sir James Courtenaye to her. But soon she recovered her prim little poise, and began making arrangements for the séance.

"Mr. Lorillard has already tested my bona fides to his own satisfaction," she said. "He has examined my small suite, and knows that no person, no theatrical 'properties' are concealed about the place. If any of you would like to look around, however, before we start, I'm more than willing. Also if you'd care to bind my hands and feet, or sit in a circle and hold me fast, I've no objection."

As she made this offer, she glanced from one to the other of us. Pale, silent Joyce shook her head. Jim "left it to Princess di Miramare," and I decided that if Captain Lorillard was satisfied, we were.

"Very well," purred Miss Reardon. "In that case there's nothing more to wait for. Captain Lorillard, will you switch off the lights as usual?"

"Oh!" I broke in, surprised, "I thought you'd told us that the 'influence' was just as strong in light as darkness?"

"That is so," replied the medium, "except for materialization. For that, darkness is essential. There's some quality in darkness that They need. They can't get the strength to materialize in light conditions."

"How can we see anything if the room's pitch-black?" I persisted.

"Explain to your friends, Captain Lorillard, what takes place," bade Miss Reardon.

"When – June comes – she brings a faint radiance with her – seems to evolve it out of herself," Robert said in a low voice.

As he spoke he switched off the light, and profound silence fell upon us.

Some moments passed, and nothing happened.

Joyce and I sat with locked cold hands. I was on the right of the medium, and from my chair quite close to hers could easily have reached out and touched her, if I'd wished. On her left, at about the same distance, sat Robert. Jim was the only one who stood. He had refused a chair, and propped his long length against the wall between two doors: the door opening into the hall outside the suite, and that leading to Miss Reardon's bedroom and bath.

We could faintly hear each other breathe. Then, after five or six minutes, perhaps, I heard odd, gasping sounds as if someone struggled for breath. These gasps were punctuated with moans, and I should have been frightened if the direction and nearness of the queer noise hadn't told me at once that it came from the medium. I'd never before been to a materializing séance, yet I felt instinctively that this was the convulsive sort of thing to expect.

Suddenly a dim light – oh, hardly a light! – a pale greenish glimmer, as if there were a glowworm in the room – became faintly visible. It seemed to swim in a delicate gauzy mist. Its height above the floor (this was the thought flashing into my mind) was about that of a tall woman's heart. A perfume of La France roses filled the room.

At first our eyes, accustomed to darkness, could distinguish nothing except this glowworm light and the surrounding haze of lacy gray. Then, gradually, we became conscious of a figure – a slender shape in floating draperies. More and more distinct it grew, as slowly it moved toward us – toward Robert Lorillard; and my throat contracted as I made out the semblance of June Dana.

The form was clad in the gray dress which Miss Reardon had so surprisingly described when we met her first – the dress June had worn the day of her engagement – the dress of the portrait at River Orchard Cottage. The gray hat with the long curling plume shaded the face, and so obscured it that I should hardly have recognized it as June's had it not been for the thick wheel of bright, red-brown hair on each side bunching out under the hat exactly as June had worn her hair that year. A long, thin scarf filmed like a cloud round the slowly moving figure, looped over the arms, which waved gracefully as if the spirit-form swam in air rather than walked. There was an illusive glitter of rings – just such rings as June had worn: one emerald, one diamond. A dark streak across the ice-white throat showed her famous black pearls; and – strangest thing of all – the green light which glimmered through filmy folds of scarf was born apparently in a glittering emerald brooch.

At first the vision (which might have come through the wall of the room, for all we could tell) floated toward Robert. None save spirit-eyes could have made him out distinctly in the darkness that was lit only by the small green gleam. But I fancied that he always sat in the same seat for these séances; he had taken his chair in a way so matter of course. Therefore the spirit would know where to find him!