I poured him tea. "And you?"
"Your left slipper is wet, yet you have not been outdoors. The damp patch on the wall behind you has grown two inches since yesterday. The monsoon wind comes from the southwest. Elementary." He smiled, a thin, tired smile. "But I am not here for architecture. I am here for a ghost." chandana mendis sherlock holmes books
"The fifth fingerprint," he murmured. "The police found four clear prints on the victim’s collar. But they belong to his wife, his driver, his assistant, and the temple priest. All accounted for. But a fifth print—wax, not sweat—cannot be lifted. It melts at body heat. It leaves no record." I poured him tea
"Watson," said Chandana Mendis, stepping out of the downpour without an umbrella. "Your ceiling is leaking." The monsoon wind comes from the southwest
As the imposter monk was led away in chains, Mendis stood before the Mirror Wall. He traced one of the ancient verses with his fingertip.
Mendis pulled a small, folded paper from his sarong. On it was a rubbing of an ancient Brahmi inscription. "The victim left a message before he died. Not a note. A riddle —carved into a potsherd with his own fingernail. It reads: ‘When the mirror wall speaks, the fifth fingerprint is a lie.’ "
I, Dr. James Watson, had been retired—truly retired—for three years, writing my memoirs in a bungalow near the Peradeniya Gardens. But old habits die hard. Especially when the habit comes knocking in the form of a lean, copper-skinned man with eyes like polished moonstones.