When Did the Butler Dunnit? The History of “the Butler Did It” Trope

If you’re a scholar of mysteries oregon adjacent fancy a whodunit execution enigma movie astatine the extremity of a agelong day, you’ve apt heard of the trope “the butler did it.” It conjures images of a butler, darting astir an isolated mansion unnoticed, spinning up immoderate revenge crippled oregon program to flight with his affluent employer’s millions. This benignant of crippled is often seen arsenic inexpensive oregon predictable, an casual retired for a closed-room execution oregon heist. But wherever did the trope travel from, and however communal is it, really?

When the Butler First Did It

According to galore sources, “the butler did it” trope was coined by Mary Roberts Rinehart successful The Door, a 1930s enigma by the prolific writer successful which, well, the butler does it. In the novel, an aged household caregiver was murdered, and the revealed fishy isn’t confirmed until the precise past page. Interestingly enough, though Rinehart is credited with the look “the butler did it,” the operation doesn’t appear successful The Door, nor was she the archetypal to usage that crippled device.

In fact, successful 1930 erstwhile it came out, it was already seen arsenic a anemic and predictable crippled successful the nationalist eye. In a review successful Life successful 1926, according to an investigation of the trope by Gareth Rees, a reviewer of The Donovan Affair said “we automatically fishy the butler close astatine the start” and a quality successful “What, No Butler?” by Damon Runyon successful 1933 says the “way these things are done successful each the murder-mystery movies and plays” is to pin it connected the butler.

A much-quoted regularisation for mysteries by S.S. Van Dine, an American creation professional and detective caller writer, railed against choosing a servant arsenic the culprit arsenic a “too casual solution” successful his database of “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories” from 1928.

How Popular Was the Trope, Really?

The postulation containing the communicative “The Man with Nine Lives”

As it turns out, the trope was not that popular, contempt however overmuch radical poke astatine the anticipation of the butler brandishing the food knife. In 1893, “The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual” by Arthur Conan Doyle features a transgression butler, though not the main suspect; successful 1914, “The Man with Nine Lives” by Hugh C. Weir featured a transgression butler; and successful 1915, E. Philips Oppenheim wrote The Black Box, successful which a transgression masquerading arsenic a British butler murders a miss for the household jewels. Agatha Christie, too, took connected the butler finger-pointing successful The Murder of Roger Ackroyd in 1926, though this is simply a reddish herring successful the caller and nary existent butler-doing-it was done.

But really, determination weren’t that galore novels oregon stories that utilized the trope, particularly not capable to garner the public’s eye-rolling astatine the usage of it successful 1930. Mike Grost said The Door was “notable for being 1 of lone a fewer real-life examples” of the trope.

So, however tin Rinehart beryllium the creator of the trope if radical were already cracking jokes oregon offering criticisms astir it by the clip her caller adjacent came out? And however tin it beryllium truthful fashionable if not galore novels adjacent utilized the trope?

TV Tropes posits it whitethorn person to bash with societal fears successful reality, a playing up of the precocious class’s suspicion of their home servants having sticky fingers successful their ain household. In measurement 4 of London Labour and the London Poor published successful 1851 by Henry Mayhew, the section connected “housebreakers and burglars” says it “occasionally happens servants are successful league with thieves,” detailing the ways successful which criminals tin manipulate oregon enactment with the servants of the household to summation entree to its hidden riches. In Lady Audley’s Secret from 1862, too, the quality Lady Audley “shares with her Victorian readers a mounting anxiousness astir the eyes and ears of servants successful the home.” It makes a definite consciousness that the trope seemed much fashionable due to the fact that it dug into the fears of the precocious people astatine the time.

Whether you similar the aged butler-did-it trope oregon could bash without it, hopefully, you recovered this glimpse into the trope’s past interesting. If you’re successful the temper for a whodunit (don’t worry, nary spoilers connected the who), cheque retired these locked country mysteries oregon this quiz that volition lucifer you with your adjacent whodunit read!