The Impulse

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After it was over, they wanted to find out more about the man who had done this thing. They wanted to know how the mind had become twisted, how one human could wish such a violent, shattering death on another — selecting the victim by whim, on impulse. But little could be learned about him after his death. Certain bald facts were ascertained, but they yielded no clue to what had transpired in the stilled brain.

His name was Howard Elser. He died three weeks before his forty-first birthday. For the nine years before his death he had worked as a machinist at Bacon-Held, a firm that made cheap automotive parts for sale through accessory stores. He was five feet, eight inches tall, and weighed a hundred and fifty-five pounds. He had a wide, colorless, unmemorable face, small features, black thinning hair, rather large hands.

He had no friends. He was known to the men he worked with as a silent, competent man. They called him Elser. He lived alone at 1881 Bernice Street, in a small frame house in a decaying neighborhood in the north end of the city. Some of his neighbors knew him by sight, and some knew him by name. He had no car. The house had a large sturdy garage.

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