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CASE No. 08

The Lighthouse at Point Calimere

Three keepers went up the tower. Two came down.

Cover art for The Lighthouse at Point Calimere

The scene

Point Calimere lighthouse, on the bare south-eastern coast of Tamil Nadu, December 1963. A single granite tower on a salt flat, two miles from the nearest village, manned by three keepers on rotating watches. A cyclone passed offshore two nights ago and the radio mast is down.

The victim

Ramaiah, 51, the head keeper, found at dawn at the foot of the tower's spiral stairs, his neck broken, the lamp still burning above. The other two keepers each swear the other did it, and the lighthouse's own logbook is missing.

The suspects

Every one of them is hiding something, and their alibis form a single shared timeline. Somewhere in it, one statement cannot possibly be true. Find the contradiction and you have found the killer. This is as far as any file goes without spoiling it, the rest is yours to work out.