PATHOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -The police went to the house because someone had heard a shriek. Why did the narrator confess to the crime? The narrator confesses to the crime because he imagines that he hears the old man’s heartbeat. However, the sound he heard was actually the beating of his own heart.

Detailed explanation-2: -In any case, by calling the police “villains” for acting one way and feeling another, the narrator admits (in a round about way) that he too is a villain. By connecting his auditory hallucinations with the old man’s heart, he admits he actually feels bad about what he did, or at least knows it’s wrong.

Detailed explanation-3: -The narrator expresses fear that “a neighbour” will hear the old man’s heart beating, and, sure enough, one little scream and the neighbor gets out of his or her bed, goes down to the police station, and raises enough flags to get the cops out the old house extremely quickly.