low-ceilinged room on the ground floor in one of the towers of the old cell house. Asa had been warned a number of times that his room was not a safe place to sleep in the day time. Convicts in the yard could enter the room at any time during the day, without being seen by the yard guards or wall guards. Though the one door to the room was thick and heavy, Asa seldom if ever locked it.
Asa had risen in the afternoon, complaining to himself about the noise being made by the convicts in the yard. His peevishness vanished, however, after a cold wash, and he sang as he stood looking out at one of the windows and brushing his hair:
"When I die and am buried deep,
"I'll return at night to take a peep
"At those who hated me.
"I’ll ha’nt their homes and spoil their sleep,
"Chill their blood, the skin will creep,
"On those who—"
Asa’s song ended then—ended in a horrible gurgle. A “trusty” found him an hour later lying in a pool of blood near the open window.
His throat had been cut by a sharp instrument in the hand of a person unknown.
Hulsey the “lifer” was questioned, of course, but there was absolutely nothing to indicate that it was he who committed the murder.
The guards looked sadly upon all that remained of Asa Shores and said to each other in hushed voices:
“It had to come. Asa was too good a convict guard not to be murdered.”
And though the prison stool pigeons kept their cars and eyes opened, though each guard became a detective, the murder of Asa Shores remained a mystery.
Old Tower Number Three was closed and the doors locked. There was no immediate use for it; out the warden was contemplating the advisability of having another guards’ entrance gate cut through the wall under the tower. In this case, of course, the tower would be used again.
Night Captain Jesse Dunlap sat alone in the guards lookout, inside the walls, at one o’clock on the morning following the murder Asa Shores. Bill Wilton, the night yard guard, was making his round about the buildings in the yard.
Captain Dunlap lazily watched the brass indicators on the report board before him. The indicator for Tower Number One made a half turn to the left and a small bell on the board rang. The captain lifted the receiver from the telephone at his elbow and received the report, “Tower Number One. Anderson on duty. All O. K.”
Dunlap merely grunted a response and replaced the receiver on the nook. Presently the indicator for Tower Number Two turned to the left, the bell tinkled, and Dunlap again took the receiver from the hook.
“Tower Number Two. Briggs on duty. All O. K.” came the report over the wire.
Then come New Tower Number Three; next Tower Number Four. From the three outside guard-posts came the reports, and one from the cell house, each guard turning in his post number, his name and the usual “O. K.”
All the indicators on the board, except that for Old Tower Number Three, were now turned. Captain Dunlap relaxed in his chair, sighed heavily and lit his pipe. Lazily his eyes wandered back to the indicator board.
The unturned indicator for Old Tower Number Three held his gaze and utter sadness gripped him for a moment. Night after night, promptly on the hour, he had seen the indicator for Old Tower Number Three flip jauntily to the left and had heard the tinkle of the little bell on the board. It had always seemed to him that the indicator for Asa Shores’ tower turned with more pep than the other indicators, that the bell had tinkled more cheerily, that good old Asa Shores’ report carried a note of cheerfulness that lightened the lonesome watches of the night.
