The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Homicidal Diary, by Earl Peirce

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Title: The Homicidal Diary

Author: Earl Peirce

Release Date: February 8, 2010 [EBook #31222]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from "Weird Tales" October, 1937.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence
that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "Then I heard him in the hallway and on the stairs."]

The Homicidal Diary

By EARL PEIRCE, JR.

What strange compulsion drove an ordinarily gentle and cultured man,
on one night of each week, to roam the city streets and commit a
ghastly crime?

I am writing this account of my friend Jason Carse in the interests of
both justice and psychiatry, and perhaps of demonology as well. There
is no greater proof of what I relate than the sequence of murders
which so recently shocked this city, the newspaper items regarding the
crimes, and especially the official report of the alienists who
examined Carse during his trial. I cannot expect to bring Doctor Carse
back to life, for he was hanged until dead, but I do hope that this
paper will offer new illumination on cases of criminal decapitation.

Justice and psychiatry are closely related, but it is difficult to
recognize the judicial importance of so _outre_ a subject as
demonology. Yet I emphatically assert that the case of Jason Carse is
irrevocably concerned with evil and dark lore such as mankind has not
known since the Holy Inquisition.

One is naturally prejudiced against Carse, for even I myself, his
lifelong acquaintance, was struck with repugnance when I first
realized the nature of his activities, but his death on the gallows
should foreclose biased reflection and permit the student to regard
his case in a purely empirical light. As I am the only man in complete
possession of the facts, it behooves me to give this a