The Tell-Tale Heart
By: Edgar Allan Poe
Summary
In the twisted story of "The Tell-Tale Heart," the butler of an old man has had thoughts of killing the old man. Why? because he has a problem with the "vulture eye". Every night for seven nights at midnight the butler would sneak into the old mans room and watch him sleep. On the eighth night at 4:00 am the old man was dead. The butler later hid the body and happily let the cops in who where called by neighbors as they heard a shriek during the night. "I smiled--for what did I have to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country." Later something horrible happened the butler thought he heard the ringing of the old mans heart, and later the butler confessed; "Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! --tear up the planks! here, here! --It is the beating of his hideous heart!"