Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 105, No. 5, October 10, 1936

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Ed Kirby cut the air on the pneumatic drill and carried it to the tool shed. The motor on the compressor coughed a couple times then went dead. The day’s work was over. He joined the other workers as they climbed out of the shale-rock excavation sixty feet below the sidewalk level.

From the pocket of his whipcord breeches he took out a hand-kerchief and wiped his moist face. Men were all around him crowding, making coarse jokes and smoking.

Ed nodded casually to some of the workers he had known only a few days. But he didn’t have a word to say to any of them. He merely looked. All day long he had looked at new workers coming on the job, searching for a face stamped on his memory. There was about him an air of infinite patience.

A big man — Kirby, with blond hair, a lean jaw and grayish-blue eyes set deep into cavernous sockets. His upper body was naked and brown. He found his shirt and coat on the upper level and pulled them on.

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