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El asesino había limpiado las huellas del vaso.

El asesino había limpiado las huellas del vaso.
The murderer had wiped the fingerprints off the glass.
From Lesson 225:Past perfect tense (había...)·Spanish (Spain)

Questions & Answers about El asesino había limpiado las huellas del vaso.

Why is it había limpiado instead of the regular past tense limpió?
Había limpiado is the Past Perfect tense (Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto), which translates to "had cleaned" or "had wiped". You use it to talk about a past action that happened before another past event. It is formed by combining the imperfect tense of the helping verb haber (here, había for "he") with the past participle of the main verb (limpiado).
Why does the English translation say "wiped off" when limpiar means "to clean"?
While English frequently uses phrasal verbs like "wipe off" or "wipe away", Spanish often prefers simpler verbs. Saying the murderer "cleaned" (había limpiado) the prints from the glass is the most natural way to express this idea in Spanish.
Does the word huellas always mean "fingerprints"?
Not always! A huella refers to any kind of mark, track, or trace left behind. It often means "footprint" or "paw print" in other contexts. In a police or crime scene context like this sentence, it is widely understood as a shortened version of huellas dactilares (fingerprints).
Why do we use del vaso to say "off the glass"?
Del is the mandatory contraction of the preposition de (from/of) and the masculine article "the" (el). Spanish doesn't have a direct, separate preposition for "off" in this context. Instead, you conceptually "clean from" the object. Therefore, de + el smoothly becomes del.

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