Chapter 5

It was two mornings later that Cynthia saw Hank again.

He was waiting for her when she came back to the office from another disheartening and unproductive visit to Bud. She was startled at how her heart leaped at sight of him, and she greeted him with a warm friendliness that was deflated by his cold steel-gray eyes and his curt manner.

"Sorry I had to break our engagement the other day," he said. "I was called out of town on business."

"I quite understand, Mr. Dowler." Cynthia's tone matched his, as she brought the contract out of the files and laid it before him. "If you'll check this, I think you'll find that it is more nearly what you wanted."

Hank picked up the contract, leafed through it, nodded and reached for his pen. As he scrawled his name where she indicated, he said without looking up, "I have another job for you, Cynthia: a sales contract. One of the men in the troupe just had the trap sprung on him, and his dear little wife objects to his remaining a member of the Lucky Devils. So we're buying out his stock."

Cynthia looked justifiably puzzled.

"I'm afraid I don't quite understand," she suggested politely.

Hank looked up, scowling, and his eyes were still chilly.

"Oh, sorry," he apologized brusquely. "The Lucky Devils are a cooperative group. We all hold shares, and split the profits and all that. Now my best driver, who has more nerve in his little finger than most racing drivers have in their whole bodies, was fool enough to get himself married this summer, and his dear little bride doesn't want him risking his neck racing. Wants him to sell out his share in the troupe and open a service station in her hometown!

"Jenks and I were planning to drive in the Grand Prix at Sebring next April," he went on harshly. "The kid was looking forward to it; he and I had some great plans! And now, just because he had a few weeks off during the summer, he had to go and make a fool of himself, all over some cotton-headed, mealy-mouthed, big-eyed little gal who baited a love trap for him and sprang it right in his face. And he's so besotted about her that he's not even grieving about missing out on the Grand Prix!"

Cynthia said curiously, "You seem to feel pretty strongly about this-love trap, you called it? I take it for granted, then, that there isn't any Mrs. Dowler?"

Hank looked at her, outraged.

"Me, married? Look, Cynthia, I'm really a Lucky Devil-I've managed to sidestep any traps that were scattered around for me!" he protested.

"Well, that's strictly a matter of opinion, Mr. Dowler," Cynthia told him crisply. "If you'll give me the details, I'll have Maggie type up the necessary papers for your friend's withdrawal from the troupe."

Hank nodded, and when she had finished taking down the necessary information, she stood up to indicate that the scene was finished.

"I'll have this ready for your signature late this afternoon, shall we say?" she suggested curtly.

Hank looked down at the notes she had made and said curiously. "So that's all it takes to end a man's career! What a rotten break for a kid like Jenks!"

"You speak of him as though he had died," Cynthia reminded him. "If he has found a girl he loves and has married her-"

"Oh, don't get me wrong, Cynthia," Hank assured her earnestly. "I think marriage is a grand institution-for fellows interested in leading a nice, safe life; making the seven-ten in the morning, battling their brains out to make a living for the wife and kids, home at five-thirty to watch TV and go safely up to bed. But for a fellow in my line-no thanks!"

"And that's the kind of life your friend wants?" asked Cynthia.

Hank's lean, brown face twisted.

"It's what his wife wants, and since he is fool enough to be in love with her, he has no other thought than to do what she wants!" he answered grimly. "Oh, I can replace Jenks easily enough as a driver. I know half a dozen guys that would jump to fill his place. But-well, Jenks and I had a lot of plans, and he was such a swell guy; everybody in the gang liked him and he was popular with the crowds. And now all that is kaput!"

Cynthia said quietly, "Well, after all, the choice was his."

"Oh, no, it wasn't! The choice is never the man's!" Hank was still seething with the cold anger that had driven him for the last two days. "It's always the gal who sets the trap, and then steps back and smothers a giggle when the poor blind fool steps into it. And from that moment on she leads him around on a string like a performing bear in a circus."

Cynthia straightened and her eyes flashed.

"You," she told him sharply, "are a menace to my sex. I'm not a bit sure I want to handle your legal affairs, Mr. Dowler."

He seemed to emerge, at least momentarily from the grip of fury that had held him since he had received Jenks' letter asking to be released from the Lucky Devils.

"Oh, there's nothing personal in anything I've said, Cynthia," he told her. "I'm sure you'd never need to set a trap."

"I'm a woman, Mr. Dowler."

"Oh, sure, but you're also a lawyer and a darned good one, and I'm sure you'd never have to set a trap for any man you wanted," Hank assured her. "It's just that I've talked my head off, both to Jenks and Janie, and neither of them would listen. I've lost two good men this year already and-well, I had hoped to have Jenks with me at Sebring. And to think of Jenks, who always worked out the most daring stunts and came through without so much as a singed eyebrow, chained down to a service station-it's like seeing a fine young stallion hitched to a farm plow."

"I see your point, but I'm afraid, being a woman, I can see the wife's point, too," Cynthia began.

"But that's what makes it so infernally maddening." Hank was newly angry. "Four of the men in the troupe are married, and their wives travel with us and never turn a hair when their husbands are doing their stunts! I suppose you'll say they don't really love their husbands?"

Cynthia raised her eyebrows and laughed lightly.

"Goodness, how would I know? Women are funny people, Mr. Dowler."

"It was Hank before I had to go see Jenks," he reminded her.

"Was it?" asked Cynthia coolly. "I'm afraid that was another man entirely. I don't seem to know this one very well. But if you'll drop in to the office this afternoon around four, Maggie will have these papers ready for your signature."

He hesitated for a moment, despite the flat dismissal in her tone.

"Would there be any chance that you would have dinner with me tonight, to make up for the lunch we missed?" he asked awkwardly.

"No chance at all, Mr. Dowler, thanks," she told him briskly.

Still he hesitated, while Cynthia waited for him to leave. "Some other time perhaps?"

"Perhaps."

He turned toward the door, hesitated and came back to stand beside the desk, meeting her eyes gravely.

"I hope I didn't-well, get out of line."

Cynthia's eyebrows lifted still more.

"Out of line?" she repeated. "I'm afraid I don't understand, Mr. Dowler."

"I meant talking about marriage. Are you married?"

"Of course not!" Her tone added plainly that she thought it none of his business.

"Or maybe engaged? Perhaps to Kirby?"

"Really, Mr. Dowler, you are being-that is, I can't see that any of this concerns you at all! Are you trying to ask whether or not I go out socially with men? The answer is that I do, and also, that I can't see that it's any business of yours." Her tone was sharp, her eyes blazing.

He stood studying her for a moment with that curious, oddly disturbing gaze, and then he stood straight, nodded, and his jaw set in a grim line.

"You're quite right, it isn't at all," he agreed. He turned and strode out of the room, and she heard the hard thud of his footsteps on the stairs as he went down to the street.

"Well!" It was a small, explosive sound as Maggie came and stood in the doorway.

"Well, indeed," said Maggie, eyeing Cynthia with an amused twinkle in her eyes. "Now there's a man-"

Cynthia reached for a paperweight on her desk, and her eyes flashed as she lifted it.

"You say one word about Hank Dowler being dangerous-" she threatened ominously.

"Well, you know yourself he is, so put down the paperweight," Maggie said firmly. "I couldn't help hearing him. He really is in a tizzy, isn't he?"

"And I couldn't care less." Cynthia dropped the paperweight and stood up. "Since you heard him, you know that he wants this sales agreement drawn up for his signature. I told him you'd have it ready for him late this afternoon. So you take care of it like a nice girl."

"You're not going to be here?" asked Maggie.

"I'm going to comb the highways and byways in the hope of finding a scrap of evidence that will help Bud, and I won't be back to the office," Cynthia said firmly. "Oh, I'll pick you up here."

"Skip it," said Maggie cheerfully. "I'll hitch a ride home. Sure to be somebody heading that way by the time I'm ready to leave. Not that I want to be nosy, but just what did you have in mind for this afternoon?"

"Oh, I thought first I'd try to talk to some of Mose's friends."

"Which shouldn't take more than ten minutes at the most."

"And some of Bud's friends."

"Possibly fifteen minutes."

"Oh, Maggie, stop needling me!" Cynthia burst out, and Maggie was startled at her tone. "Can't you see I've got to do something? I can't just sit here, knowing in my heart that Bud is innocent and not doing one blasted thing to try to prove it. I can't go there to the jail to see him, knowing he is counting on me, or face that pathetic child, Gladdie-May, every evening and not be able to tell her something's being done. Even if I don't know what or how to start-"

"Sure, honey, I understand," said Maggie, warmth and gentleness in her voice. "You run along. But watch yourself, honey; you don't know what you may be stepping into. Mose wasn't the most sterling character in the world, and his friends-if he had any-could be pretty tough."

"You think I don't know that?" Cynthia sighed.

"Promise me one thing, baby?"

"Of course!"

"Get home before dark!" Maggie was stern about it. "I won't have you wandering around in the kind of places Mose frequented after dark!"

"Oh, everybody knows me, Maggie. Nobody would do me any harm."

"Famous last words!" scoffed Maggie. "You get home before dark, you hear me?"

Cynthia managed a mirthless laugh and, as she walked past Maggie, hugged her tightly.

"Yessum, will do," she promised meekly.