"We weren't even near him. He had gone over for a peek at that precipitous edge. We were quite far away, many yards from him, the three of us together. He must have had a seizure, a dizzy spell. We heard the scream as he slipped, toppled — and then he was gone. The Vermont police examined the site after we reported it. It had begun to snow and they could not make out any footprints on the edge. But from the points of the jagged crags below, which they could reach, they recovered bits of bone, bits of flesh, and bits of the ski suit he had been wearing. The body, of course, was never recovered." He put the tip of his right index finger between his teeth and bit upon the fingernail, audibly.

"Mr. Troy," I said. "Do you have any idea as to why your sister has come up with this-wild story of hers?"

"I'm afraid there's only one explanation. I believe her to be in the throes of a severe nervous breakdown."

"But is there any basis for it? Any past history? Any reason?"

"She mentioned our reciprocal wills to you, didn't she?"

"Yes," I said.

"Well, Adam's estate, after taxes, was divided into approximately fifty thousand dollars for each of us. My brother Joseph, a childless widower, was a rather conservative man, as am I. We put that money away and continued in the even tenor of our ways — but not so Sylvia. She quit her nightclub work, went off to Europe, and within a year, she had squandered her inheritance in toto. I think this did something to her, disturbed her, that within a year she was back to where she had started. She was compelled to return to work for a living, and right then, right from the beginning, she began to act peculiarly. Then she began to prattle about a plot, our plot, to murder Adam. And now this terrible business about Adam's ghost."

"And what about Joseph?" I said. "His suicide. Would you tell me?"

"Precious little to tell. Joseph was a sweet, simple, meticulous man. He was quite a hypochondriac although he had a dread of doctors. About six months ago he developed stomach pains, nausea, vomiting. He refused to go to a doctor, but I finally dragged him. X-rays disclosed a mass in his stomach. The doctors believed it to be benign, but Joseph believed otherwise. We had arranged for an operation but, before the time for it arrived, he killed himself."