“Ruby—Ruby’s dead, Eddie. Didn’t you read about it in the papers?”
“Ruby—dead? You—you ain’t kiddin’ me, Sally? Ruby—dead!”
Sally’s distressed blue eyes fluttered to David’s face as if for help.
“Ruby—fell—out of a fifth story window, Eddie—last September,” Sally admitted in a choked voice.
“After she had spent the summer on the Carson farm, Eddie,” David broke in quietly, significantly.
Sally closed her eyes so as not to see the conflict of rage and grief in Eddie Cobb’s boyish face.
“I hope to God you did kill him, David!” Eddie burst out at last. “If you didn’t, I’ll finish him!”
“What’s all this, Eddie?” a great bellow brought them all to startled attention. “Old home week? Get to your work! Lucky’s howling for you. Who the hell do you think’s going to set out the dolls?”
Eddie’s importance was suddenly shattered. The big man, who seemed to Sally to be as tall as the giant whom he advertised as a star attraction, came striding across the stubby, dusty lot. His enormous head, topped with a wide-brimmed black felt hat in defiance of the torrid June weather, showed a fringe of long-curling white hair which reached almost to the shoulders of his Prince Albert coat.
“I’d like to speak to you a minute, sir,” Eddie urged.