The Butler Did It: Difference between revisions

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]].

It is okay, however, for a butler to be a suspect, primarily to mislead the reader.

* Invoked in ''[[Detective Conan]]'', where {{spoiler|the father of a pianist [[Driven to Suicide]] by a rich [[Jerkass]] gets a work as the butler of the old man and uses this to murder him in his birthday party. He also was planning to kill the old man's daughter who was the son's girlfriend, but due to a miscalculation he fails... and it was a good thing, as the girl still loved the son and had become a [[Broken Bird]] after his death.}}

** Another episode involved {{spoiler|a butler kidnapping a little girl named Akiko. However, it turns out that he was doing it for noble reasons and with Akiko's permission, since her father was a [[Workaholic]] and she wanted his attention. Unfortunately, Akiko was kidnapped again, ''this'' time by a genuine criminal. After she's rescued, the dad forgives both butler and daughter and grants Akiko her wish, as they go into a vacation together.}}

* In ''[[Hellsing]]'', {{spoiler|if Sir Islands' suspicions are anything to go by, Walter Dornez - the Hellsing family's butler - had been working for Millennium way before he officially turned, and was responsible for the security breaches that enabled the Valentine brothers to get into the mansion and massacre most of Hellsing's staff. It's also just a ''tad'' convenient that he gives Alucard a gun which is later destroyed by the Doktor via remote control.}}

== Film ==

* This is what sets the plot of ''[[The Aristocats]]'' in motion, pretty much. Butler Edgar is second in line for the fortune his wealthy mistress wants to leave to her cats (or so he believes, due to a combination of [[Poor Communication Kills]] and Edgar being stupid enough to think the cats will ''outlive him''), and so knocks them out with sleeping pills and tries to get rid of them. This being Disney, the kitties live, and then have wacky adventures before Edgar's comeuppance is delivered.

** Of course, it's not a mystery. The audience (but not the characters) knows it's Edgar right off the bat.

* [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.

** Technically, Lawrence was a ''valet'', not a butler, although I don't believe either was specifically stated by Naveen or Lawrence in the film.

* In ''Where The Truth Lies'', Lanny believes Vince killed the girl and Vince thinks Lanny is the murderer. It turns out the butler strangled her. The reveal hurt the movie; as one critics noted the ending was "straight out of the big book of mystery clichés".

* ''[[Gosford Park]]'' where a valet/butler tries to kill a wealthy aristocrat, but the housekeeper beats him to it!

* ''[[The Three Stooges]]'' episode "If a Body Meets a Body".

* The butler did it in the [[Sherlock Holmes]] story "The Musgrave Ritual", although in that case it's only theft, not murder, and not the mystery; the question is ''why'' he did it, and what happened to him afterwards. It eventually transpires that he's {{spoiler|dead, possibly at the hands of his accomplice. The maid did it (or at least let it happen).}}

** In ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'', suspicion initially settles on the butler Barrymore and his wife Elisa, but both are later shown [[Red Herring|to be innocent]]. {{spoiler|What they ''are'' guilty for, however, is giving shelter and supplies to a fugitive -- who turns out to be Elisa's younger brother.}}

** In ''Three Act Tragedy'', the butler is the prime suspect, having disappeared soon after the murder. Turns out {{spoiler|he did it}}, but {{spoiler|he was one of the other suspects in disguise}}.

** {{spoiler|''Black Coffee''}}, originally written as a play, has this ending. In the book adaptation, not by Christie, it's spoiled the moment it happens by outright stating, before the detectives even arrive, that the character {{spoiler|placed the poison into the victim's coffee cup before giving it to him.}}

** One of Christie's short stories, {{spoiler|''The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman''}} also employs this trope, except that in this case the "Butler" is actually a Valet.

** {{spoiler|Subverted}} in [[And Then There Were None]]. The butler, Mr. Rogers, (and his wife) are two of the suspects, {{spoiler|but are two of the first victims. They're guilty of ''something else'', though (killing their former boss, a rich and sickly spinster), and ''that'' is why they got killed.}}

* In [[The Dresden Files]], it's not exactly the Butler, but has the [[Beneath Suspicion]] slot down pat: the traitor on the White Council isn't the [[Jerkass]] leader, the mysterious Asian, the noble Native American shaman, the Captain of the Wardens, OR Harry's [[Jerkass]] parole officer Morgan - {{spoiler|it's Samuel Peabody, ''the secretary''.}}

== Live Action Television ==

* This is used in the ''[[Bones]]'' episode "Yanks in the UK", seemingly for the sole purpose of allowing them to use that line. On the other hand, it's arguably a subversion: The butler's confession conveniently stops the investigation and spares his employer's family the public scrutiny of a trial; it's unclear if he in fact "did it."

* On one episode of ''[[The Twilight Zone]],'' a group of people get off a bus and gather at a cafe where they are served food and drinks by the local counter jerk and dine. It is later revealed by the police that one of the people on the bus seems to have been an alien. [[Ten Little Murder Victims]] ensues, the resolution of which is only a half-subversion of [[The Butler Did It]]: one of the people from the bus ''was'' The Mole, but the cafe worker who served them all and remained very much in the background throughout the story was also an enemy alien from a different planet, and was two steps ahead of The Mole the whole time.

== Tabletop Games ==

* In the setting of the role-playing game ''[[Over the Edge]]'' there is a [[Milkman Conspiracy]] of butlers and personal retainers around the world. They usually don't murder their patrons, but if there was a good reason...

== Video Games ==

* Carltron, Professor Ruffleberg's robotic [[Battle Butler]] from ''[[Secret of Evermore]]'', is revealed to have been the one behind his disappearance, and also those of several of his contacts.

* Early hints in the first episode of ''[[Covert Front]]'' hint at the butler, Manfred, having done ''something'' to his master. {{spoiler|At the bequest of his superiors in the [[Imperial Germany|Imperial]] hierarchy, as it turns out}}.

== [[Western Animation]] ==

== Anime & Manga ==

* In a ''[[Soul Eater]]'' [[Breather Episode]], Excalibur tells a tale of how he helped Sherlock Holmes solve a murder in which the butler can clearly be seen twirling around a butcher's knife in the background.

** {{spoiler|But it was Watson. Excalibur said it.}}

== Comic Books ==

** Later in the same arc, Bruce Wayne escapes custody. The detectives in charge of the inquiry, after piecing various hints together, finally reach the conclusion that "The butler did it", after spending much of the inquiry snarking that it ''cannot'' be the butler, [[Genre Savvy|because the butler ''always'' does it]].

** Then there's "Last Rites," a two-part [[Batman]] story set during ''[[Final Crisis]]'', with one chapter called "The Butler Did It" and the other "What the Butler Saw." It turns out that Alfred the butler {{spoiler|is actually the Lump, a telepathic parasite hiding inside Batman's memories as he is used for clone fodder by the gods of Apokolips}}. It's [[Grant Morrison]], what can we say.

* In one of the first issues of ''[[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]]'', when Spider-Man defeated Electro for the first time and unmasked him, he thought "If this was a movie, I would be saying 'Good Heavens! The ''butler''!" but admitted that he had never seen him before.

{{quote| ''"You see, Inspector? I was right! The butler did it!"''<br />

''[[Inner Monologue|I am so nine years old.]]''<br />

== Film ==

** Also, in the ''Clue'' VCR game, the butler (and narrator) is ''named'' Didit. In this case, though, he's not a suspect.

*** Except for his own murder, which he faked to push the guests over the edge of their paranoia.

* In ''[[Murder By Death]]'', when the detectives are offering their solutions, one of them claims that it was the butler who did it {{spoiler|and then faked his own death}}.

* ''[[Gosford Park]]'' is an exploration of this trope and other murder-mystery-related tropes:

** Lampshaded when one character, an American movie maker working on a new murder mystery set in England, calls his studio:

* ''Why Shoot a Butler?'' by [[Georgette Heyer]] (1933)

* "What, No Butler?" by [[Damon Runyon]] (1933)

* ''[[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 ''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.}}

* One [[Avram Davidson]] story presents a (fictional) crime writer who first used the phrase "the butler did it," and subsequently made a great deal of money off of murderous butler stories. When he stumbles into Butler Afterlife, its inhabitants are inclined to kill him for defaming their profession.

* This is specifically forbidden under No.11 of [http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/vandine.htm Dine's Rules] for writing mysteries.

* In a televised version of one of the ''Hercule Poirot'' mysteries, Poirot and Hastings attend a murder-mystery play. The two agree to a game: Poirot will try to figure out which character is the murderer, and write it on a slip of paper which Hastings will read during the third act. Poirot's paper reads: "The butler did it." {{spoiler|The play's butler turns out ''not'' to be the culprit, much to Poirot's annoyance, and the Belgian detective spends several minutes complaining to Hastings about bad scripting.}}

* In an episode of ''[[Doctor Who]]'' that featured Dame Agatha as a character and was itself a murder mystery, Donna Noble at one point quips that "Well, at least we know the butler didn't do it."

* In a sketch on ''[[The Muppet Show]]'', with Rowlf as [[Sherlock Holmes]], the butler did it. However, because the butler is a Muppet monster, he then eats all the evidence, including the body and the only witness. Holmes therefore concludes that, in the absence of evidence, there was no crime at all (having briefly "deduced" that, in the absence of evidence pointing towards the butler, Watson did it).

* [[Veronica Mars]], solving the case in "An Echolls Family Christmas", muses that she's ticked because she was "this close" to being able to say [[The Butler Did It]].

{{quote| '''Veronica:''' "But no. It was the butler's ''son''."}}

{{quote| '''Emma:''' Go ahead, say it. [[I Always Wanted to Say That|You know you've been dying to]].<br />

'''Steed:''' The butler did it! }}

* In one episode of ''[[Monk]]'', the introduction implies that the butler dislikes his new employer, the son of his former, now dead employer, while delivering a drink. Instead of drinking the Manhattan, the employer {{spoiler|pulls out a pistol and shoots the butler.}}

* In an episode of ''[[The Golden Girls]]'', they're participating in a murder mystery weekend. The accusations start flying for the first mystery, [[The Ditz|Rose]] stands up, points to the waiter and the following exchange occurs:

'''Rose:''' Thank you. The maitre'd did it! }}

* ''[[The Closer]]'' had a parody, [[Lampshade Hanging]], and subversion all in one in the episode "The Butler Did It". The butler had confessed to a previous murder and was working on a plea bargain when he apparently committed suicide, and the detectives in charge were looking forward to actually being able to say "the butler did it". Turns out, {{spoiler|he didn't; he was likely to expose the true killer, who killed him instead and made it look like a suicide}}.

* In an episode of ''[[Castle]]'' where Castle and Beckett are having trouble figuring out a suspect for the [[Body of the Week|Murder of the Week]]:

{{quote| '''Beckett''': Okay Mr. Mystery Writer Man, what's ''your'' bestselling theory?<br />

'''Castle''': That's who we always go with when we run out of ideas. }}

** Played with in a later episode, where it looks like the butler ''may'' actually have done it, leading to significant lampshading on the part of Castle. (It's averted at the end - he was merely ''stealing'' from his employer.)

* Used for a pun in an episode of ''[[Quincy]]''. {{spoiler|"Butler" was the surname of the [[Monster of the Week|Killers of the Week]].}}

{{quote| '''Quincy:''' You've known [who did it] for ''years!'' {{spoiler|The Butlers did it. ''[[I Always Wanted to Say That|(gets goofy grin on his face)]]''}}}}

== Newspaper Comics ==

* Gary Larson drew a ''[[Far Side]]'' cartoon where two detectives are summoned to solve a murder -- at a butler's convention. [[Punch Line]]: "I hate to start a Monday with a case like this."

* ''The Aesop Brothers,'' a ''[[National Lampoon]]'' cartoon strip by Charles Rodrigues about (non-identical) Siamese twins, once played this as an extended fart joke. The brothers as a Holmes-and-Watson pair are retained to find out who let go a wicked one in the presence of an elderly British nobleman. You can guess the ending.

* In ''Something's Afoot'', a musical parody of Agatha Christie's ''Ten Little Indians'' and similar plots, the butler is killed before the first act, leading to the title song's opening line, "Something's afoot, and the butler didn't do it!"

* There is a murder-mystery [[Affectionate Parody]] play out there called ''The Butler Did It''. The show jokingly doesn't even have a butler in the cast and at the very end it is revealed that {{spoiler|the maid is the murderer}}. The show also has a sequel entitled ''The Butler Did It Again''.

== Webcomics ==

* ''[[Bob and George]]'' [http://www.bobandgeorge.com/archives/000411 lampshaded it.]

* In ''[[Freefall]]'', Helix watches a [[Godzilla]] movie and is disappointed to learn that [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1200/fv01185.htm the wrecker of Tokyo was not a giant butler].

* Definitely played with in ''[[My Sims]] Agents''. In one part of the story, a fortunite crystal, which is able to let people see the future, is the most-sought part of Cyrus [LeBodreaux]'s estate. However, when Madame Zoe goes into the crystal room for a pre-dinner reading, you find that the crystal there has been smashed! You follow the evidence which leads you to the conclusion that Carl, the zombie butler, was the one who smashed it. {{spoiler|However, it turns out that Zoe, a skilled hypnotist, was whispering hypnotic suggestions to him as he slept. Not only that, but it turns out that the crystal in the crystal room wasn't even the real fortunite crystal! Zoe, having foreseen that she wasn't the named inheritor of her uncle's estate, had intended to make people believe the fortunite had been destroyed so that the other potential inheritors would leave, allowing her to keep the estate anyway.}}

* {{spoiler|Straight with a twist}} in ''[[Ace Attorney]]''. {{spoiler|The butler technically did it--but he's not actually Matt Engarde's butler, he's assassin Shelly de Killer posing as a butler. The player knows this before Phoenix does, so it's a bit of [[Fridge Horror]] when you realize Phoenix is in the same house as the kidnapped Maya, but has no idea she's only two doors away.}}

* Lampshaded in the MMORPG ''[[Runescape]]''. During the quest "Murder Mystery" you can talk to gossips about the murder of Lord Sinclair. One of the options you can say is "I think the butler did it" in which case the gossip will say something along the lines of "you've been reading too many murder mystery novels my friend". This does not affect the quest's plot in any way.

** In a classic [[Chuck Jones]] cartoon, "Daffy Dilly", Daffy attempts to enter the mansion of an ailing millionaire who has offered a million dollars for anyone who can give him a good laugh before he passes on. After repeated attempts to get past an implacable butler, Daffy invokes this trope to get rid of the butler:

{{quote| '''Daffy''': A likely story. I see it all now. You and the upstairs maid. 'Do the old boy in,' you said. 'Elderberry wine and old lace,' you said. And then, 'the quick getaway,' you said! [[Large Ham|Rio di Janerio, tropical nights, romance and a heavy bank account!]]}}

{{quote| '''Shaggy:''' And I thought the butler did it!}}

* ''The New Adventures of [[Winnie the Pooh]]'' turned this into a [[Running Gag]] in the episode ''Tigger, Private Ear''. At the climax of the episode, Tigger [[Joker Jury|cross-examines himself]] at a trial to get Piglet off the hook:

{{quote| '''Tigger:''' Framed? But by who? [[Genre Savvy|It wasn't the butler, was it]]?}}

{{quote| '''Bugs''': So the butler's ''butler'' did it!}}