chunk: On the last day of the investigation, the narrator accompanies the police into the cellar. They still find nothing significant. Then, completely confident in his own safety, the narrator comments on the sturdiness of the building and raps upon the wall he had built around his wife's body. A loud, inhuman wailing sound fills the room. The alarmed police tear down the wall and find the wife's corpse, and on its rotting head, to the utter horror of the narrator, is the screeching black cat. As he words it: "I had walled the monster up within the tomb!"