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I already had his office number in Utica, and he gave me his home number as well.
    "But please try to call me at the office," he said.
    BURGHASH Antiques Imports was on University Place between Eleventh and Twelfth. I stood in one aisle surrounded by the residue of half the attics in Western Europe. I was looking at a clock just like the one I had seen on Gordon Kalish's wall. It was priced at $225.
    "Are you interested in clocks? That's a good one."
    "Does it keep time?"
    "Oh, those pendulum clocks are indestructible. And they're extraordinarily accurate. You just raise or lower the weight to make them run faster or slower. The case of the one you're looking at is in particularly good condition. It's not a rare model, of course, but they're hard to find in such nice shape.
    The price might be somewhat negotiable if you're really interested."
    I turned to take a good look at him. He was in his middle or late twenties, a trim young man wearing flannel slacks and a powder-blue turtleneck sweater. His hair had been expensively styled. His sideburns were even with the bottoms of his earlobes. He had a very precise moustache.
    I said, "Actually, I'm not interested in clocks. I wanted to talk to someone about a boy who used to work here."
    "Oh, you must mean Richie! You're a policeman? Wasn't it the most unbelievable thing?"
    "Did you know him well?"
    "I hardly knew him at all. I've only been here since just before Thanksgiving. I used to work at the auction gallery down the block, but it was terribly hectic."
    "How long had Richie worked here?"
    "I don't honestly know. Mr. Burghash could tell you. He's in back in the office. It has been pure hell for all of us since that happened. I still can't believe it."
    "Were you working here the day it happened?"
    He nodded. "I saw him that morning. Thursday morning. Then I was on a delivery all afternoon, a load of perfectly hideous French country furniture for an equally hideous split-level chateau in Syosset.
    That's on Long Island."
    "I know."
    "Well, I didn't. I lived all these many years in blissful ignorance that there even was a place known as Syosset." He remembered the gravity of what we were talking about, and his face turned serious again.
    "I got back here at five, just in time to help close up shop. Richie had left early. Of course by then it had all happened, hadn't it?"
    "The murder took place around four."
    "While I was fighting traffic on the Long Island Expressway." He shivered theatrically. "I had no idea until I caught the eleven o'clock news that night. And I couldn't believe it was our Richard Vanderpoel, but they mentioned the name of the firm and-" He sighed and let his hands drop to his sides. "One never knows," he said.
    "What was he like?"
    "I hardly had time to know him. He was pleasant, he was courteous, he was anxious to please. He didn't have a great knowledge of antiques, but he had a good sense of them if you know what I mean."
    "Did you know he was living with a girl?"
    "How would I have known that?"
    "He might have mentioned it."
    "Well, he didn't. Why?"
    "Does it surprise you that he was living with a girl?"
    "I'm sure I never thought about it one way or the other."
    "Was he homosexual?"
    "How on earth would I know?"
    I stepped closer to him. He backed away without moving his feet. I said,
    "Why don't you cut the shit."
    "Pardon me?"
    "Was Richie gay?"
    "I certainly had no interest in him myself. And I never saw him with another man, and he never seemed to be cruising anyone."
    "Did you think he was gay?"
    "Well, I always assumed it, for heaven's sake. He certainly seemed gay."
    I found Burghash in the office. He was a little man with a furrowed brow that went almost to the top of his head. He had a ragged moustache and two days'
    worth of beard. He told me he'd had cops and newspapermen coming out of his ears and he had a business to run. I told him I wouldn't take much of his time.
    "I have a few questions," I said. "Let's go back to Thursday, the day of