The unreliable narrator is a favorite device of Edgar Allan Poe, and the narrator who tells us the story of "The Tell-Tale Heart" is the quintessence of unreliability. The first thing he does is to accuse us of thinking him mad and, by the time he has finished his story, we almost certainly do think so.

It seems, therefore, only too probable that he acts in a suspicious manner to the officers while they are searching the house, even though (perhaps because) he says he was "singularly at ease." The narrator himself admits that he grew pale as he heard the noise and that he began to talk more quickly and vehemently as it increased. If the officers' suspicions had not been aroused before, they certainly would be at this stage. By the time he admits "I foamed—I raved—I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards," we are well beyond the realms of suspicion.

The narrator, therefore, certainly arouses the suspicions of the officers at some stage, but given the nervousness of the manner in which he tells the story, it is perfectly likely that he was acting suspiciously from the moment he opened the door to them.