but why will you say that i am mad? now this is the point. you fancy me mad. madmen know nothing. but you should have seen me. you should have seen how wisely i proceeded-with what caution with what foresight with what disssimulation i went to work. I went to work. i was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before i killed him and have i not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense If still you think me mad you will think so no longer when i describe the wise precautions i took for the concealment of the body

what causes the narrator to confess to killing the old man?
answers:
The cops smell the dead body
The cops start questioning him more
He hears the old mans hearbeat
He misses the old man

1 answer

The primary cause of the narrator's confession to killing the old man is that he hears the old man's heartbeat. In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," the narrator becomes overwhelmed by guilt and anxiety, which manifests as the sound of the old man's heartbeat, driving him to confess his crime.