What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men

The old man slowly made his way up the steps. It would be good to rest in his own bed after the fortnight he had been away. He had expected to find Robert gone and the house deserted. What he had not expected was to find the three floorboards which had been torn up from his bedroom floor. Had Robert done this? Was he hunting for rats?

There were other signs of chaos and disarray in the room. Signs of a struggle? He nodded. Yes, yes. That would make sense. It put his fears to rest and made him feel a bit better. To sleep under your own roof and under your own blankets is a pleasure to be enjoyed to the full.

It was still late in the afternoon when his cogitations were disturbed by an insistent knocking. He expected no visitors and was but mildly surprised when he saw Mrs. Mulvaney upon the welcome mat.

“Oh, Mister Gerringer, you've finally come back.”

“Of course. I was only visiting a friend in the country.”

“I wish you had told me, or someone where you were headed. The police have been trying to locate you and no one had the slightest idea where you might have been. I'm afraid they feared you were dead!”

“Dead? Why would anyone think that? And you say the police were involved?”

“You haven't heard, then?”

“Haven't heard what?”

“The young man who used to stay with you, you haven't heard what became of him?”

“Well I haven't heard anything since I've just returned. I didn't see Robert about, but that's not too surprising. He has his own life to be live.”

“They've taken him away to the mad house!”

“To the madhouse! Whatever for?”

“Oh, it was a terrible thing, simply terrible. A week ago if it was a day. Late in the evening it was, after the stroke of midnight. I was up with Mister Mulvaney, and we both heard the most strident cry coming from your house. It sounded like someone being murdered! I sent my Bob to find a constable. Three of them arrived. And after not even a half hour I heard the signs of struggling and shouting, coming from over here. We saw it out of our window. He was absolutely uncontrollable. Later we learned he had been sent to Boston Lunatic Hospital. Oh, it was a dreadful night! I couldn't get back to regular sleep for three days.”

Of course it would be Boston Lunatic, and not McLean. No one knew how much money Mister Garringer had, and with him out in the country they had no way of inquiring. So they took him to where they take all the poor lunatics.

Well, it looked like his plan to get rid of that obsequious young man had borne fruit. He had made the mistake of taking the boy in. Certainly he was a help and more than earned his keep. But Mister Gerringer could not escape the ever growing suspicion that what the young man was really after, was his money. Over the last year he had grown increasingly afraid of the boy. He did not tell where he had hidden his money but if the man was serious, it might just be a matter of time before he acted and found a way to dispose of him.

It was by merest chance that, a year later, the old man ran across the first issue of a new periodical. The Pioneer: A Literary and Critical Magaizine. It promised to be a “rational substitute for the enormous quantity of thrice-diluted trash, in the shape of namby-pamby love tales and sketches.” What moved him to purchase the magazine was not the two tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne, nor the poetry of Elizabeth Barring Browning. Rather it was the single offering of Edgar Allan Poe. He had read young Poe's stories before, greatly enjoying The Fall of the House of Usher, Ligea and most of all, The Murders in the Rue Morgue.

But on arriving home and reading a tale with the curious title of The Tell-Tale Heart, he found his own heart becoming chill with increasing dread. The conviction grew on him that this was no fiction. Indeed, he became absolutely certain that it was young Robert Graham he was writing about. This was Robert, whom he was certain had wanted to murder him. There were those very thoughts, spelled out in fiction!

Yet, if Poe's story was true, Robert had never entertained such thoughts. He had never had designs on old man's money—moreover, he had even loved him. Garroinger was shocked. It seems then that he had done a great disservice to the boy, one he had not deserved.

Robert had remained at the hospital, and over the last year he had been slowly recovering his sanity. The hallucinations must have been terrible. He had actually imagined that he had killed Gerringer, all because of that horrible “vulture's eye!”

He looked in the mirror. He studied his reflection. Was it really that bad? He remembered he had tested the belladonna beforehand. Even in the tiniest quantity, it had affected him badly. He had become overly sensitive to light. He had suffered blurred vision and had even experienced a rather vivid hallucination and waking day dream. And that was only from the smallest dab? Now he knew just how badly a much greater dose of deadly nighshade, and the other tinctures would affect one.

It explained much. Gerringer, of course, had not had a “vulture eye,” but in his deranged brain Robert had hallucinated he had. So terrible had been the effects, so far had he been divorced from reality that he had become psychotically focused on an imaginary eye cancer. He had imagined that he had killed the old man. Thought he had dismembered him and buried him under the floorboards. He obviously was not in his right mind, for the body would have decayed and the stench become unbearable after only a few days.

Robert had felt crushing guilt in the extreme, even though he was innocent of actual murder. That, then, was the reason the floorboards had been torn up. Robert had confessed to the terrible crime his deluded brain had convinced himself he had committed.

Robert would have screamed at them. Could they not see the dismembered head, limbs and body? Was he so pathetic that they could not take him seriously—even when the evidence was right before their eyes? Oh, how that must have infuriated him! He would have become increasingly unstable and violent, leading to his eventual confinement in the Boston Lunatic Hospital.

And Gerringer thought to himself, it is not Robert that should be confined there but I. Have I not caused his undeserved suffering, simply because I tarred and feathered him with the onus of a covetous and grasping wretch, when such thoughts were furthest from his mind?

He had finally spoken with his handlers and physicians. And he had spoken with Robert Graham. The young man was indeed better. He had long ago processed and overcome the terrible effects of his madness. The doctors there (though the hospital was not known for its great successes) had enacted an almost miraculous cure. Gerringer knew this was because, unlike the vagabonds and masterless riff-raff who were the typical tenants of Boston Lunatic, and from whose ranks the armies of the truly mentally ill were daily gathered, Robert had but merely endured a temporary affliction. Restored then to his place in the old man's home he would make a full recovery, and there never again would be such an eruption to destroy his life ever again.

But by the time a full five weeks had gone by, Gerringer found his doubts and fears returning by stages, like an unclean spirit returning to his former habitation, and finding it swept and garnished, had gone out and taken seven other spirits more wicked them himself, and brought them back with him.

My last state is indeed worse than the first, as the Scripture sayeth. There was nothing that could be definitely pointed to. To all appearances, the young man had been fully readjusted to society and to the company of the old man.

Yet, that suspicion had grown and grown. It dogged his steps. It haunted his waking hours and was increasingly his bed-fellow by night. Even in his dreams was there no relief from what was fully on its way to a monomaniacal obsession.

He began to watch the boy more and more. He was very clever, this Robert. There was nothing the old man could find, and yet, this certainty that Robert was planning something had rapidly become inescapable. And soon it settled itself into a dread and terrifying conviction. There was no help for it. Something would have to be done.

But it was Robert who took it upon himself to solve the problem, a difficulty that he was completely unaware of being the cause of. He had arranged a journey to the country to visit a friend. This was quite the relief, though Gerringer was uneasy in that Robert had elected to do the same exact thing that he himself had done well over a year ago. Yet, as long as the boy was gone, the old man need have no worry about being slain in his sleep. There would be no psychotic reenactment of the boy's delusional fantasy.

But as the days passed Gerringer was forced to admit that something was terribly amiss. He saw signs and traces that Robert was not as far away as the boy had led him to believe. There were sounds that could not be accounted for. Objects moved from their accustomed places. And over everything the inescapable sense that he was no longer alone.

Somehow Robert had returned. He had not really left. Mrs. Mulvaney and her husband had been informed of his plans. They imagined that he had gone to the country for an extended visit. They would not suspect. He had covered his tracks too well.

He started seeing actual signs of the boy, shadow shapes that lingered too long, or who vanished round a corner more quickly than they ought.

And then came the night when Gerringer heard the breathing from Robert's room. It was in the dark of night. He should have been the only one in the house. Yet, there was Robert, asleep in his bed as on nights before. His chest rose and fell normally. What was he to do? How could he ever rest here again? Was this not a fitting punishment for what he had done against the boy, in his paranoia?

He was nearly beside himself under the weight of his worry when a loud knock nearly threw him to the floor in a panic. Several anxious minutes passed amidst continuous and uninterrupted knocking before Garringer could force himself to rise and cautiously open the door. He nearly collapsed in the relief on seeing his old friend on the threshold.

“Thank God you are here, Marcus! Oh, I wish I'd never left after I visited you.”

“Why what's the matter” It was Marcus Ogilvie, they had known each other for many, many years, and the man had unknowingly provided a convenient alibi, should any ever suspect that Robert's mental breakdown might be due to the artificial encouragement that a knowing and knowledgable (though long retired) apothecary—such as Marcus Ogilive—might have provided.

Garringer explained the whole problem to him as they stood by the vestibule, speaking in low tones and whispers.

“It is clear this young gentleman you have re-invited to your home is naught but a serpent you have nurtured in your bosom. He must be dealt with, if you are ever to have another moment's peace. We must get rid of him—tonight. He will not be missed. After all, he has let out that he is visiting with a friend of his. The Mulvaney's can vouch for that. That is your alibi. Come, you know my skills in surgery. We will take care of this right quick. The boy will not suffer needlessly, but neither will he ever trouble your rest again.”

He followed his friend to the room where Robert lay. Marcus in but a moment had cut the boy's throat. Not a sound was made.

Marcus laughed. “The boy fantasized about a beating heart. Let us make sure that you are never bothered by that, as he was by yours.”

Gerringer looked on amazed as his friend skillfully cut out the boys' heart. It kept on beating. Marcus did not hesitate, but beat the thing, smashing it against the hard wood of the bed stead. It grew silent. Dead at last.

“You've done it. I would not have had to courage to do that myself.”

“You have not the skill. But see—not even a single drop was spilled. Now we must rid ourselves of the body.” This they proceeded to do, this time retiring to the basement with the corpse.

When the work was done Gerringer thanked his friend and saw him off.

He returned to Robert's bed chamber. He gasped. They had forgotten to bury the heart with the rest of the body. He gingerly picked up the mashed organ—then dropped it suddenly on the bed clothes.

The heart stirred to sudden life again.

Garringer was horrified, as can well be imagined. It was moments before he could bring himself to seize the organ and strike at it. It continued to beat.

“Impossible! This can't real!” He attacked it with the knife Marcus had used. He tried smashing it repeatedly. Nothing worked. In the end he stuffed it in the bed clothes. He began a fire in the fireplace and threw in the sheets. The fire burned and blazed. The sheets turned black and burned away. The heart remained untouched.

And the heart kept on beating.

“Please! Robert, please stop. I'm so sorry I did that to you. It was the only way to protect myself. I drove you mad. The belladona, the antimony, the thallium, the strychnine. I knew the madness would grow until it swallowed you up—and it did. Marcus helped me. He taught me just how much to put in your drinks. But you never deserved that of me, and now—your heart won't stop beating. It won't stop beating!”

Edgar Allan Poe shook his head.

“So Garringer was the real villain, after all. I find that astonishing.”

“Yes, the old man had, in effect poisoned me—all because he was certain I planned to murder him for his money. Now he rests at McLean Asylum for the insane. It's for those with some spot of money squirreled away..”

“Not like Boston Lunatic, where you were incarcerated.”

“I forgave the old man. The courts awarded me his fortune and I've become his executor. Why be vindictive? His guilt has driven him further down that hellish road than I ever could have fallen.

“And what is ironic, is that it was all for nothing. As I told you when you first heard my story, I loved the old man. I had no designs upon his money. Bur his fear of losing it drove him to poison me, which, thank God Almighty, had no permanent effect on me. I was happy enough when poor. I only hope that now, with all these riches I shall not let them corrupt me.”

“What are you going to do now, with your new found wealth?”

“I'm going to be traveling abroad. I may even stay. I've made some inquiries and I've got my eye on a pallazzo in Italy. It belongs to an old family which, unfortunately have fallen on hard times, and have had to sell.

“If I do get the transfer of title, you might be referring to me as, Robert Graham, Count of Montressor.”

“Well, I'm flattered that a future member of the nobility came all the way to Philadelphia to visit me.”

“I thought I'd return the favor of your coming to visit me in Boston. Perhaps you might even see fit to use the details of Gerringer's madness. Slip them into one of your stories, even as you did mine. It might make a fine sequel to The Tell-Tale Heart, though I have no idea what you might title it.”

“I'm afraid it would spoil the intent of the original. But I get chills when I think about what you told me. He really thought your heart continued to beat—even when torn out of your chest.”

“Yes. He hallucinated the entire thing. He imagined his friend came down to help him with the murder, imagined the murder—even imagined the grisly ending where the heart continued to beat and nothing could stop it.”

“But couldn't his friend have actually been there, as well?”

“No. Marcus Ogilvie died several days before Gerringer went mad. He was a retired surgeon and apothecary. The two of them met in 1803, during the Napoleonic Wars. It was he who obtained the chemicals through which he hoped to drive me mad. He instructed Gerringer on the proper doses. He might well have succeeded had they been stronger.”

Graham said nothing about how he had gone to visit Ogilvie. He had tortured him to get the exact proportions of belladonna, antimony, thallium and strychnine necessary to guarantee that Gerringer would never recover. Graham's thorough and painstaking attention to detail was not a product of his own madness. Ogilvie's body would never be found. At five times the correct dosage, Garringer would be lost in his own madness, forever haunted and pursued by a heart that never stopped beating, never stopped accusing and could never die.