The orphaned niece and nephew had been under the care of Rachel Innes, a spinster, since they were little. Rachel is persuaded to rent a summer home in the country by her siblings Halsey and Gertrude, who are now 20 and 24, respectively. Thomas, a senior employee who has long served the Armstrong’s, gives them the alarming warning that there is a ghost in the house.
Even though there are still break-ins and strange tapping noises during the night, Rachel is determined to stay in the house until the mystery is solved and her nephew is proven innocent. She learns that Thomas and Mary had been concealing a very ill Louise Armstrong—the fiancé of Halsey and the stepdaughter of Paul Armstrong—in the groundskeeper's home.
Rachel manages to shoot the would-be-burglary in the foot but the burglar still gets away. Against her will, Louise breaks off her engagement to Halsey in order to wed the town coroner. In order to aid in the inquiry, Jack Bailey pretended to be the new gardener. He finally cleared himself of all allegations, and he later married Gertrude. The housekeeper Mary, who was also the sister of Arnold Armstrong's unfaithful ex-wife, shot Arnold Armstrong.
American author Mary Roberts Rinehart, also known as the American Agatha Christie, was born on August 12, 1876, and died on September 22, 1958. The Circular Staircase, Rinehart's debut mystery novel, introduced the "had I but known" narrative approach. Although the exact phrase does not occur in Rinehart's book The Door (1930), she is regarded as the creator of the "the butler did it" story device. As one of the first women to visit the front lines in Belgium during World War I, she also worked to share the tales and experiences of these troops. Mary Ella Roberts, who is now known as Rinehart, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's Allegheny City. Olive Louise, Mary's sister who is four years Mary's junior, went on to become well-known as a children's book author and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. Her father was a frustrated inventor, and the family experienced frequent monetary issues throughout her youth. Mary was just 19 years old when her father committed suicide. She was trained to use her right hand because she was left-handed at a time when that was improper. Her autobiography, titled My Story, was first published in 1931 and then rewritten in 1948.
