The Diary of a Madman by Guy de Maupassant
In general, I'm more likely to read novellas than short stories. but RIP XIII's Peril of the Short Story is a good excuse to pick some up. I'm not sure how "The Diary of a Madman" by Guy de Maupassant came to my attention, but it's one of those stories that manages to pack so much in so few pages. The dead man was a judge, but he was far, far from the upstanding, good man the public believed him.
The story, after a short introduction, is a section from his journal, detailing his thoughts on man, and crime, and killing. It's a short story, available at https://americanliterature.com/author/guy-de-maupassant/short-story/the-diary-of-a-madman and I don't want to ruin it by telling the entire plot. Suffice it to say, the judge is evil and, in the end, uses his office to put the crowning touch on his crimes.
De Maupassant does an amazing job in so few pages allowing us to see the true nature of the judge, as...