The narrator murders his wife when she tries to stop him from hitting their pet cat. He describes himself as being at this moment "Goaded ... into a rage more than demoniacal." As a result, he "burie(s) the axe in her brain," killing her instantly. The narrator then sets about concealing his wife's dead body behind one of the walls in the cellar.

Four days after the murder, the police come to the narrator's house. After searching every room of the house, the police seem to be "thoroughly satisfied" that there is nothing amiss. The narrator describes, at this moment, a "glee at (his) heart ... too strong to be restrained." He has a seemingly irrepressible desire, it seems, to boast of his crime, wanting the police to appreciate how clever he has been in concealing the corpse. Indeed, he says that he "burned to say if but one word, by way of triumph."

It is at this point, in a moment of hubris and bravado, that the narrator decides to knock on the wall, behind which the corpse of his wife is concealed. Ostensibly, he knocks on the wall to show the police how "solidly put together" the walls are, but the real reason is that he just cannot contain himself and gives in to a "phrenzy of bravado." One might also infer that the narrator, on some subconscious level, wants to be caught.

At the moment when the narrator knocks on the wall, he is answered by "a voice from with the tomb ... a cry ... like the sobbing of a child." The police immediately take the wall apart to discover the rotting corpse behind.