Transcriber’s Note:
This etext was produced from “Weird Tales” October, 1937.Extensive research did not uncover any evidencethat the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
“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 myfriend Jason Carse in the interests ofboth justice and psychiatry, and perhapsof demonology as well. There is nogreater proof of what I relate than thesequence of murders which so recentlyshocked this city, the newspaper items regardingthe crimes, and especially theofficial report of the alienists who examinedCarse during his trial. I cannot expectto bring Doctor Carse back to life,for he was hanged until dead, but I do438hope that this paper will offer new illuminationon cases of criminal decapitation.
Justice and psychiatry are closely related,but it is difficult to recognize thejudicial importance of so outré a subjectas demonology. Yet I emphatically assertthat the case of Jason Carse is irrevocablyconcerned with evil and dark lore such asmankind has not known since the HolyInquisition.
One is naturally prejudiced againstCarse, for even I myself, his lifelong acquaintance,was struck with repugnancewhen I first realized the nature of hisactivities, but his death on the gallowsshould foreclose biased reflection andpermit the student to regard his case in apurely empirical light. As I am the onlyman in complete possession of the facts,it behooves me to give this astoundinginformation to the world.
Jason Carse was a brilliant and respectedcriminologist, and at the time of hisarrest he was recognized as one of thegreatest students of the modern world, afact which has made his case one of unparallelednotoriety. I was his roommateduring the several years we spent in lawschool, and, although he shot to the pinnacleof his branch of jurisprudence whileI was left to more prosaic routine, wenever lost the contact which has now becomeso valuable. Our correspondencewas frequent and regular since we weregraduated, and I can say with justifiablepride that Carse respected my friendshipas much as that of any other acquaintance,if not more. It was this intimacywith his personal life which has enabledme, as friend and confidant, to witnessthe revolting atavism which resulted insuch outrageous crimes.
I obtained my first hazy acquaintancewith the crimes three months ago whenI received Carse’s letter from Vienna. Hehad just discovered sensational evidencein a famous criminal case—one of recurrenthuman decapitation—and his consequententhusiasm was so rabid that I wasafraid the morbidity of such matters wasbeginning to pervert his senses. For severalyears I had become p