The Black Cat, E.A. Poe (V)

(V)

Upon the fourth day of the assassination,

a party of the police came, very unexpectedly,

into the house…

… I felt no embarrassment whatever…

… they descended into the cellar…

… I quivered not in a muscle…

… the police were thoroughly satisfied

and prepared to depart.

The glee at my heart was too strong to be restrained.

I burned to say if but one word,

by way of triumph,

and to render doubly sure their assurance

of my guiltlessness.

‘Gentlemen… I delight to have allayed your suspicions…

By the bye, gentlemen, this –

this is a very well-constructed house…

I may say an excellently well-constructed house.

These walls – are you going gentlemen? –

these walls are solidly put together’

And here,

through the mere frenzy of bravado,

I rapped heavily with a cane…

upon the very portion of the brickwork

behind which stood the corpse

of the wife of my bosom…

But may God shield and deliver me

from the fangs

of the Arch-Fiend!

… I was answered by a voice from within the tomb! –

By a cry,

at first muffled and broken,

like the sobbing of a child,

and then quickly swelling into

a long,

loud,

and continuous scream,

utterly anomalous and inhuman

-         a howl –

a wailing shriek,

half of horror and half of triumph,

such as might have arisen only out of hell,

conjointly from the throats

of the damned in their agony

and

of the demons that exult in the damnation.

Of my own thoughts is folly to speak.

Swooning, I staggered to the opposite wall.

For one instant the party… remained motionless…

In the next

a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall.

It fell bodily.

The corpse… stood erect…

… upon its head,

with the red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire,

sat the hideous beast

whose craft had seduced me into murder,

and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman.

I had walled the monster up within the tomb.