Hey there, it's Mike Rowe, and this is not the way I heard it, this is occasionally and the occasion is Halloween and I thought it might be fun to commemorate this occasion with a ghost story. Seems like every day nowadays is national something or other day. I don't know if this is going to be an ongoing thing, but because it's Halloween and because I love Edgar Allan Poe, I thought it might be fun to share one of his better known tales with you guys.

It's called The Tell-Tale Heart.

I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with it. If you're not and if you're not familiar with Poe. Well, he was unexampled difficult life.

Guy was born in Boston back in 1899. His parents were actors. They both died before he was two. He grew up in Virginia with foster parents, moved to my hometown in Baltimore and got busy writing.

His biography is amazing. Nobody can quite pin the guy down. A lot of scholars agree he was a heavy drinker, addicted to a drug called Loud Naem. There's a lot of gossip and speculation and fabrication regarding his death, but he probably died as a result of drug and alcohol complications. October 13th, 1849, a church hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, not far from where I grew up, Poe believed that a perfect story should be readable in just one city, that it should be tightly controlled, highly compressed with topics that everybody can relate to.

What you're about to hear is ten paragraphs long. The Tell-Tale Heart is, I think, a perfect example of Poe's theory of writing. Fun to listen to, I hope, and certainly fun to read one quick mention before we get into it. A lot of people are asking me if the ghost story in my book is true. I have a book called The Way I Heard It. You've probably heard me flogging it here on the podcast for the last month or so.

But in the book I tell the story of the year I spent living in a place called Georgia Farm, an old mansion in the middle of the country. While I was working at the QVC cable shopping channel. There was so much weirdness in my life in 1992. I can't even sum it up to those of you who are asking. Yeah, the story is true. Georgia Farm is still there and it was most assuredly haunted. More on that at MicroCon book, if you're curious.

For now, Edgar Allan Poe set the mark pretty high with this one. It's A Tell-Tale Heart. And this is the way I read it. Oh. True, nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous, I had been and am, but why would you say that I'm mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them above all.

Was the sense of hearing acute? I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad, Hakin? And observe how healthily, how calmly I can tell you the whole story. It's impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but once conceived, it haunted me day and night object. There was none passion, there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me.

He had never given me an insult for his gold.

I had no desire. I think it was his I. Yes, it was this he had the eye of a vulture, a pale blue eye with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold.

And so by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man and thus rid myself of the eye forever. Now, this is the point. You fancy me? Mad Mad Men know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded. With what? Caution. With what foresight. With what? The simulation. I went to work. I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him.

And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it oh so gently.

And then when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, so that no light shone out. And then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in, I moved it slowly, very, very slowly so that I might not disturb the old man sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed.

What a mad man have been so wise is this. And then when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously, oh, so cautiously, cautiously for the hinges creaked, I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye.

And this I did for seven long nights every night, just at midnight.

But I found the I always closed and so it was impossible to do the work for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his evil eye.

And every morning when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name and a hearty tone and inquiring how he is past the night.

So you see, he would have had to have been a very profound old man indeed, to suspect that every night, just a 12, I looked in upon him while he slept. Upon the eighth night, I was more than usually cautious in opening the door, a watches minute hand moves more quickly than did mine.

Never before that night had I felt the extent of my powers, of my sagacity.

I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph to think that there I was opening the door little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea. And perhaps he heard me removed on the bed suddenly, as if startled. Now you may think that I drew back, but no, his room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness, for the shutters were closed fastened through fear of robbers.

And so I knew he could not see the opening of the door. And I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily. I had my head in and was about to open the lantern when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening in, the old man sprang up in bed crying out.

Who's there? I kept quite still and said nothing for a whole hour. I did not move a muscle and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down.

He was still sitting up in the bed listening, just as I have done night after night, harkening to the death watches in the wall. Presently, I heard a slight groan and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief. Oh, no, it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with all I knew the sound well many a night just at midnight when all the world slept, it is welled up from my own bosom, deepening with its dreadful echo the terrors that distracted me and I say I knew it well.

I knew what the old man felt and pitied him. Although I chuckled at heart, I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise. When he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself, it is nothing but the wind in the chimney. It is only a mouse crossing the floor, or it is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp.

Oh yes. He had been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions, but he had found all in vain, all in vain, because death in approaching him had stocked with his black shadow before him and enveloped the victim.

And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel, although he neither saw nor heard, but to feel the presence of my head within the room when I had waited a long time, very patiently without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little a very, very little crevice in the lantern.

So I opened it, you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily until it length the simple dim ray like the thread of a spider shot from out of the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye.

It was open wide, wide open. And I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness, all the dull blue with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones.

But I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person, for I had directed the rea as if by instinct, precisely upon the damn spot.

And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over acuteness of the sense now I say there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton.

I knew that sound well too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. But even yet, I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed, I held the lantern motionless. I tried how deadly I could maintain the ray upon the eye.

Meantime, the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker and quicker, louder and louder at every instant. The old man's terror must have been extreme. It grew louder. I say louder every moment. Do you mark me? Well, I have told you I am nervous. So I am. And now, at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house. So strange a noise is this it excited me to uncontrollable terror.

Yet for some minutes longer, I reframed and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder. I thought the heart must burst and now a new anxiety seized me. The sound would be heard by a neighbor. The old man's hour had come with a yell. I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked once, once, only in an instant. I dragged him to the floor and pulled the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily to find the deed.

So far done, but for many minutes the heartbeat on with a muffled sound.

This, however, did not vex me. It would not be heard through the wall at length. It ceased. The old man was dead, I removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone stone dead.

I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there for many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead, his eye. Would trouble me no more. If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer. When I described the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body, the night waned and I worked hastily but in silence. First of all, I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs.

I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber and deposited all between the Shandling's.

I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye, not even his could have detected anything wrong.

There was nothing to wash out, no stain of any kind, no blood spot, whatever I had been to wary for that a tub had caught all when I had made an end of these labors.

It was four o'clock, still dark as midnight as the bell sounded the hour there came a knocking at the street door.

I went down to open it with a light heart for what had I now to fear.

There entered three men who introduced themselves with perfect suavity as officers of the police, a shriek had been heard by a neighbor during the night. Suspicion of foul play had been aroused. Information had been lodged at the police office, and they the officers had been deputed to search the premises.

I smiled for what had I to fear. I begged the gentlemen welcome the shriek I said was my own in a dream. The old man I mentioned was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the house. I begged them, search, search.

Well, I led them at length to his chamber. I showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my confidence. I brought chairs into the room and desired them here to rest from their fatigues. While I myself and the wild audacity of my perfect triumph placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim. The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them I was singularly at ease.

They sat, and while I answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things.

But er long I felt myself getting pale and wish them gone. My head ached and I fancied a ringing in my ears. But still they sat and chatted. The ringing became more distinct. It continued and became more distinct. I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling, but it continued and gained definiteness until at length I found that the noise was not within my ears. No doubt I grew very pale, but I talked more fluently and with a heightened voice, yet the sound increased.

And what could I do? It was a low double quick sound, much like a sound as a watch mix when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath and yet the officers heard it not.

I talked more quickly, more vehemently, but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles in a high key and with violent gesticulations. But the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone?

I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to Furi by the observations of the men.

But the noise steadily increased.

Oh God, what could I do? I phoned. I raved. I swore. I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting and grated upon the boards. But the noise arose overall and continually increased.

It grew louder, louder, louder. And still the men chatted pleasantly and smiled. Was it possible they heard? Not Almighty God, no.

No. They heard that he suspected.

They knew they were making a mockery of my horror. This I thought. And this I think. But anything was better than this agony. Anything was more tolerable than this derision. I could bear those hypocritical smiles. No longer I felt that I must scream or die. And now again, hark!

Louder, louder, louder, louder. Villains, I shrieked, dissemble no more. I admit the deed. Tear up the planks here. Here it is, the beating of his hideous heart.