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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|"Perhaps it might be even subtler, [[Dead Unicorn Trope|if after all it ''was'' the butler."]]|'''[[Edward Gorey]]'''}}
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The butler is the avatar of the most unlikely suspect that, of course, turns out to be guilty because the author wasn't creative enough to come up with a better way to surprise the reader. It's the mystery writer equivalent of the [[Ass Pull]], except that you can see it coming a mile away, making it, for modern readers, [[The Untwist]]. Ironically because this trope is so well known, when an 'actual' butler is involved he rarely 'did it' or when he did it is down as a parody and [[Played for Laughs]].
The expression "The butler did it" was probably coined by novelist Mary Roberts Rinehart, although it's likely to be a real-world example of [[Beam Me Up, Scotty]]. The earliest ''verified'' explicit statement of disapproval dates to S.S. Van Dine's 1928 essay [http://gadetection.pbwiki.com/Van+Dine%27s+Twenty+Rules+for+Writing+Detective+Stories "Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories"] (it might be noted that these rules would disqualify the authors who defined the genre, including [[Wilkie Collins]], [[Edgar Allan Poe]], and [[Arthur Conan Doyle]]). [https://web.archive.org/web/20080905201215/http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030926.html This] article explores in detail the origin of this strange semi-existent trope.
It is okay, however, for a butler to be a suspect, primarily to mislead the reader.
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** Of course, it's not a mystery. The audience (but not the characters) knows it's Edgar right off the bat.
** Additionally, Edgar, while not elderly, is not a very young man, and it is possible for cats to live to be thirty. As three of the cats in question are kittens, they really could have outlived him. He also seems to forget that he would still be needed to take care of the cats, and considering that they take only very little in the form of food, litter and occasional vet bill, he'd still have himself a quite comfortable life, even if he wasn't the master of the house on paper.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120321000656/http://lileks.com/institute/100mysteries/51.html Reportedly], the old film ''[[The Mandarin Mystery]]''.
* No murders involved, but ''Fitzwilly'' takes this trope [[Up to Eleven]] by starring a butler who's a [[Con Man]] criminal mastermind. Subverted in that all the other domestic servants in the household also Did It.
* Lawrence from ''[[The Princess and the Frog]]'' is a lesser villain, but still needs mentioning; He was Prince Naveen's butler on his visit to New Orleans before he became an accessory to [[Big Bad|Dr. Facilier]]'s plot to {{spoiler|feed all the souls in New Orleans to his friends on the Other Side by being magically disguised as the Prince (the real thing being transformed into a frog).}} [[It's a Long Story]].
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* "What, No Butler?" by [[Damon Runyon]] (1933)
* ''The Butler Did It'' by [[P. G. Wodehouse|PG Wodehouse]] (1957)
** In the [[Jeeves and Wooster (novel)|Jeeves and Wooster]] story ''Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit'', when Bertie meets the author of the murder mystery he's reading, he asks him who's the killer, and he
* ''[[To Say Nothing of the Dog]]'' by Connie Willis plays with this trope. First it's [[Discussed Trope|discussed]], when time-traveling main character Ned muses that the mystery they're solving is nothing like old-school detective stories, where the butler always does it. It actually becomes a [[Running Gag]] in the book, as when he travels to a [[Genteel Interbellum Setting]], people are complaining that it's becoming cliche in stories for the butler to do it. {{spoiler|And then in the end, it turns out the running gag is a Checkov's Gun, and butler really did do it... but the "it" that he does is "elope with the beautiful daughter", not "murder the victim"}}.
* In the [[Agatha Christie]] novel ''Three-Act Tragedy'', {{spoiler|the murderer posed as his friend's butler solely in order to murder him and then fled afterwards in a deliberately suspicious manner, returning in his usual guise as the victim's good friend.}}
** In ''Murder on the Orient—Express'', depending on which solution you believe, the butler did indeed do it {{spoiler|along with everyone else in the Calais Coach, including the coach attendant. Poirot and the victim are the only people in that coach who didn’t put their hands on the blade.}}
*** And {{spoiler|the countess Andrenyi}}.
** In ''Black Coffee'', {{spoiler|the butler really did do it. However, since this was already a dead horse trope, you never see it coming because the butler never actually does it.}}
* In [[Arthur Conan Doyle]]'s [[Regency England|Regency-era]] novel ''Rodney Stone'', the butler was ''going to'' do it when the victim cut his own throat first.
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* A spy story written by Eric Ambler in the 1930s has an author as the main character. He gets into a conversation with a senior member of a foreign police force, who turns out to have literary ambitions of his own, but no talent: the cop's idea of a stunning resolution to the cliche-ridden murder mystery he dreams of writing is, in fact, this trope.
* In ''[[Nightside|Hell To Pay]]'', John Taylor admits that he was reluctant to suspect the Griffins' butler because it's such a cliche. {{spoiler|The butler ''did'' do it, but charging him with the crime becomes a bit beside the point when his true identity as an archdemon is exposed.}}
* In Bruce Coville's ''The Ghost Wore Gray'', Chris tells Nina: "I'd say that the butler did it... except this place doesn't have one."
* ''[[In Death]]'': At one point in ''Divided In Death'', Eve talks to Baxter about his partner Trueheart. Baxter is letting Trueheart handle a case in which a woman was found manually strangled in Upper East Side, New York City. She had a lot of money, a miserable disposition, a huge mean streak, and a dozen heirs who are all glad to see her dead. Baxter then says, "I told him I thought the butler did it, and he just nodded, all serious, and said he'd do a probability. Christ, he's a sweet kid." Clearly, Baxter was just being funny.
* There's a short story where the members of the Retired Butler's Club are boasting about how they were each suspected of murder and then cleared by clever detectives {{spoiler|even though they were all actually guilty. Then, the club's butler murders all the members.}}
* In ''[[Mindful of Murder]]'' by [[Susan Juby]], the butler is the ''detective''.
=== Live Action Television ===
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