The Third Policeman: Analysis of Major Characters.

The narrator, who as a child was sent to a fine boarding school after both of his parents died. At the age of sixteen, he becomes obsessed with the thought of a fictional charlatan, de Selby, who believes that most human experiences are illusory. After the narrator leaves school, he loses his left leg in an accident and returns home interested only in continuing his study of de Selby. He joins his dishonest caretaker, John Divney, in a crime to finance the publication of his definitive collation of all the interpretations of de Selby's thought. After Divney murders him, the narrator, not realizing that he is dead, goes to a strange police barracks in search of the lockbox that contains their loot. Amid strange dialogues and disorienting experiences, he is accused by Sergeant Pluck of murder. He narrowly avoids being hanged and escapes on Pluck's animate and gynecomorphic bicycle, toward which he develops amorous feelings. When he reaches his house, the narrator finds Divney and discovers that not three days but sixteen years have passed since he began his search for the box.