Whodunnit

[Totally Optional Prompts thought perhaps we could create a mystery thriller this week. And I think I did!]



Whodunnit

The butler did it! This I know
because the note here told me so,
the scrap of paper held as though
there were no stab wound there below.

At least I think that's what it said.
There was an awful lot of red
smeared around from where he bled
from being beaten 'round the head.

But "butler" makes me shake with fear
because the only people here
are butlers, gathered once a year
to polish skills for this career,

and me, the gal from down the road.
I left for town and then I slowed
and stopped to visit this abode,
returning money that I owed.

At being shown into the den
I entered smiling, first, and then
I see the body, hand with pen.
I hope and pray. I count to ten.

But, no, the body lying there
is dead and now it's my affair
to move from shock and raw despair,
from sudden slap to be aware

and on my toes to find the one
who started this and may have run
or chose to stay and have some fun
in thinking he'd not be undone.

I am not Sherlock Holmes, you know,
nor Marple, nor Hercule Poirot.
I want to run away, although,
perhaps a little quid pro quo

would make up for the prior loan.
For meager friendship I'd atone
by acting quickly. I alone
might bring to light the now-unknown.

I snooped around in fearful dark,
expecting that I had a mark
upon my back where knife would park,
when driven there by maddened shark.

I pulled the note from frozen clutch
with my hands shaking from the touch,
and then I lost my mystery crutch
because I had assumed too much!

I had though "butler" was the word
that on the paper scrawled and blurred
put blame upon the servant herd
and to the killer it referred.

But there amidst the crime-scene clutter,
from the scrap I voiced, with stutter,
that one word I'd thought to utter,
wasn't butler! No! 'Twas "butter".

So it seems the dear departed
had a grocery list just started
when a stranger in had darted,
leading me to plots uncharted.