Even though he knows that we, the readers, might consider him mad for this decision, yet he plans to prove his sanity by showing how "wisely" and with what extreme precaution, foresight, and dissimulation he executed his deeds. Every night at twelve o'clock, he would slowly open the door, "oh so gently," and would quietly and cunningly poke his head very slowly through the door. It would sometimes take him an hour to go that far — "would a madman have been so wise as this?" he asks, thus showing, he hopes, how thoroughly objective he can be while commenting on the horrible deed he committed.