The Perils of Death

"Nobody looks at a chauffeur the way they look at a person." - Agatha Christie, Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
 
As a child I only read mystery books.
The classic kind written by the upper classes,
well-bred wives and academics
who passed the time on rainy days
devising puzzle narratives. The scholar's wordsearch.
 
Death never seemed so brittle
as when it took place during afternoon tea,
beneath a perfect summer sky while the cricketers
took up their stumps and walked home,
the sound of the church bells spurring them on.
 
All you needed to know about a person
they told you through the clothes they wore.
The images of decadence forming a constellation with
intellect and soul. If someone tells you
the butler did it, don't believe them.
 
The butler wouldn't be clever enough. Nor would
the nanny, the groundskeeper, or anyone
raised to bow and scrape. Looking back
through the lens of new attitudes,
I scorn such snobbery. I am more sophisticated.
 
These stories which care nothing for human insight
should be locked away by now, with my train set
and my teddy bear. But still they transcend my liberal's mind.
How great to react to the perils of death not with fear
but discontent, as you wonder what the neighbours will think.