The Circular Staircase: Mystery & Detective Collections
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And thenâthe madness seized me. When I look back over the months I spent at Sunnyside, I wonder that I survived at all. As it is, I show the wear and tear of my harrowing experiences. I have turned very grayâLiddy reminded me of it, only yesterday, by saying that a little bluing in the rinse-water would make my hair silvery, instead of a yellowish white. I hate to be reminded of unpleasant things and I snapped her off.
"No," I said sharply, "I'm not going to use bluing at my time of life, or starch, either."...
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 Mary Roberts Rinehart (August 12, 1876 â September 22, 1958) was an American writer, often called the American Agatha Christie, although her first mystery novel was published 14 years before Christie's first novel in 1922.
Rinehart is considered the source of the phrase "The butler did it" from her novel The Door (1930), although the novel does not use the exact phrase. Rinehart is also considered to have invented the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing, with the publication of The Circular Staircase (1908).
She also created a costumed super-criminal called "the Bat", cited by Bob Kane as one of the inspirations for his "Batman".
