Westing House is a "creepy" mansion on a cliff near the Sunset Towers, a brand new apartment building in which a group of families has been selected to rent lovely apartments.

Westing House is rumored to be the home of Samuel W. Westing, the wealthy owner of Westing Paper Products, but Barney Northrup says the home hasn't been occupied in fifteen years.

However, at the end of October, the sixty-two-year-old delivery "boy," Otis Amber, says excitedly that he has seen smoke coming from the Westing House chimney—a fact others also notice. After hearing his scary story about it, one of the residents of the Sunset Towers, a girl named Turtle, accepts a dare to enter the Westing House, which is large, grand, and chilly, with a big game room. While there, Turtle finds a corpse. It turns out to be the body of Samuel Westing, who was murdered by an heir.