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By Root 2507 0

teenager as I was, nor such a dissolute and callous pre-med student—but somehow, despite my efforts, I am never able to blend myself in entirely and remain in some respects quite distinct from my surroundings, in the same way that a green chameleon remains a distinct entity from the green leaf upon which it sits, no matter how perfectly it has approximated the subtleties of the particular shade. Whenever Bunny, rudely and in public, accused me of wearing a shirt which contained a polyester blend, or remarked critically that my perfectly ordinary trousers, indistinguishable from his own, bore the taint of something he called a “Western cut,” a large portion of the pleasure this sport afforded him was derived from his unerring and bloodhoundish sense that this, of all topics, was the one which made me most truly uncomfortable. He could not have failed to notice what a sore spot his mention of the murder had touched in Henry; nor, once he sensed its existence, could he have restrained himself from continuing to jab at it.

“Of course, he didn’t know a thing,” Francis said. “Really, he didn’t. It was all a big joke to him. He liked to throw out references to that farmer we’d gone and murdered, just to see me jump. One day he told me he’d seen a policeman out in front of my house, asking my landlady questions.”

“He did that to me, too,” said Henry. “He was always joking about calling the tips number in the newspaper, and the five of us splitting the reward money. Picking up the telephone. Pretending to dial.”

“You can understand how thin that wore after a time. My God. Some of the things he said in front of you—The terrible thing was, you could never tell when it was coming. Right before school let out he stuck a copy of that newspaper article under the windshield wiper of my car. ‘Mysterious Death in Battenkill County.’ It was horrible to know that he’d saved it in the first place, and kept it all that time.”

“Worst of all,” said Henry, “there was absolutely nothing we could do. For a while we even thought of telling him outright, throwing ourselves on his mercy so to speak, but then we realized, at that late date, it was impossible to predict how he’d react. He was grouchy, and sick, and worried about his grades. And the term was nearly over too. It seemed that the best thing to do was to stay on his good side until the Christmas break—take him places, buy him things, pay a lot of attention to him—and hope it would blow over during the winter.” He sighed. “At the end of virtually every school term I’ve been through with Bunny, he’s suggested that the two of us go on a trip, meaning by this that we go to some place of his choosing and that I pay for it. He hasn’t the money to get to Manchester on his own. And when the subject came up, as I knew it would, about a week or two before school was out, I thought: why not? In this way, at least, one of us could keep an eye on him over the winter; and perhaps a change of scenery might prove beneficial. I should also note that it didn’t seem to be such a bad thing if he were to feel a bit under obligation to me. He wanted to go to either Italy or Jamaica. I knew I couldn’t bear Jamaica, so I bought two tickets for Rome and arranged for some rooms not far from the Piazza di Spagna.”

“And you gave him money for clothes and all those useless Italian books.”

“Yes. All in all it was a considerable outlay of money but it seemed like a good investment. I even thought it might be a bit of fun. But never, in my wildest dreams.… Really, I don’t know where to begin. I remember when he saw our rooms—actually, they were quite charming, with a frescoed ceiling, beautiful old balcony, glorious view, I was rather proud of myself for having found them—he was incensed, and began to complain that it was shabby, that it was too cold and the plumbing was bad; and, in short, that the place was completely unsuitable and he wondered how I had been duped into taking it. He’d thought I knew better than to stumble into a lousy tourist trap, but he guessed that he was wrong. He insinuated that our throats