Margaret Maron is the author of twenty-seven novels and two collections of short stories. Winner of several major American awards for mysteries, she has received the North Carolina Award for Literature, her native state’s highest civilian honor. Her works are on the reading lists of various courses in contemporary Southern literature and have been translated into seventeen languages. She has served as national president of Sisters in Crime, the American Crime Writers League, and Mystery Writers of America. She lives with her husband on their century farm near Raleigh, North Carolina. Her brother received a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories one Christmas, but she was the one who read it cover to cover. Despite her upbringing as a daughter of the colloquial South, Maron was captivated by the formal language of nineteenth-century London.
Dr. Watson provides an account of the events that occurred shortly after Mrs. Hudson’s fainting spell in “The Empty House,” published in the Strand (1903) and collected in The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
THE SHADOW NOT CAST
Lionel Chetwynd
The Rabbi sat in the main sanctuary of his synagogue and marveled at the understated beauty, a reminder of its nineteenth-century origin as Washington’s first place of Jewish worship. It was now, late at night, he loved it most: soft indirect light rimming the high ceiling, the shimmering backlit curtain of the Ark and its sacred Torahs, the eternal flame flickering. He fixed his eyes on the deep blue stained-glass window whose Star of David had been with the synagogue from its very beginning more than a century and a half ago. Tears welled in his eyes. He buried his head in his hands.
Perhaps he heard the stranger enter at the rear of the sanctuary, but if so, he gave no indication, only his hunched shoulders betraying his weeping. The man proceeded down the center aisle, coming to a definite halt at the Rabbi’s front pew. The Rabbi spoke without turning.
“You’re not unexpected,” he said, only then allowing his eyes to flicker to the stranger. At the sight of the visitor his eyes widened, his expression one of great shock. “You!” he half-whispered. “You came yourself!” The visitor said nothing. And so the Rabbi stood and walked to the aisle. “I considered your offer. But my mind is set. I must do as my conscience dictates. You might not understand.”
The visitor showed no emotion. Abruptly, he reached out, grabbed the Rabbi, and spun him around—snapping his neck in a single motion, the crack of the spine echoing through the empty sanctuary. Letting the Rabbi crumple to the floor, he strode to the Ark, opened it to reveal the Torahs dressed in fine silver breastplates and scroll handle sleeves. Taking a Hefty bag from his coat pocket he opened it roughly, and went swiftly and efficiently about collecting the silver.
