Page 50 of The Haunted Hotel
“He’s right, you saved me.” Ellis grins up at me playfully.
“Yeah, sure, I saved you.” I snort, and this time I do roll my eyes at the absolute ridiculousness of the situation. “From the crazy English writer in pink-checked pants clutching a fake axe. It’s not like I gave you a kidney or pulled you out of a burning building.”
“Still,” he says softly, his eyes bright. “Thank you.”
My heart starts to pound out an irregular staccato and I swallow, feeling awkward. “Oh, uh, well, like I said, you were in no real danger. I mean, it is fake.” I spin back towards MrPennington and eye the axe, which looks like something a Viking would use to pick his teeth and then pillage a small village. “Itisfake, isn’t it?”
“What, this?” He lifts the axe up. “Of course it is.” To prove his point, he gives it a swing, only to freeze in horror as the lethal-looking steel head flies off, followed a second later by the sound of something smashing.
Mr Pennington jolts at the sound and winces, then turns back towards us with his face fixed in awhoopsgrimace. “I will pay for that.” He points at what looks to be a broken vase.
“Oh dear,” Ellis sighs. “I believe that was a gift from King Ferdinand of Spain in 1504.” Mr Pennington’s eyes widen and his face drains of colour. “Either that, or it’s the one that Rosie won in the village raffle last summer. They do look remarkably similar.”
Mr Pennington closes his eyes and raises both hands with his fingers crossed. “Please let it be the raffle prize.”
I glance over at Ellis, who winks at me with a devilish smile. My cock twitches at that naughty look on his face, and I’m pretty certain Ellis, who is completely devoted to this place, knows damn well it’s not a sixteenth-century vase.
“Pennington, relax, Ellis is just messing with you.”
Mr Pennington opens his eyes and looks over at Ellis hopefully. “Really?”
“Got you!” Ellis points at him and Mr Pennington gasps and gives a roaring laugh.
“My goodness, Ellis, you certainly did! The entire contents of my bank account flashed before my eyes just now.”
“Relax.” Ellis chuckles. “I’m pretty sure the person who donated it to the raffle got it from the local charity shop.”
“Pennington, where did you get the axe?” I ask.
“Oh, from the storage cupboard just off the ballroom. I was out stretching my legs—got to make sure I keep the circulationgoing, you know. Anyway, I was exploring the ballroom, which is, of course, where poor dear Leona Falberg-Black met her untimely demise from a shoddy stage light falling on her. There was a whole load of props left over from that time period just shoved in a storage room, so I borrowed it.”
“Uh, Mr Pennington,” Ellis interjects, “the props left over from the film sets are in a concealed part of the old ballroom. That storage cupboard is filled with items from the history of the house.”
“The axe is real?” He blinks.
“I believe it was used at the Battle of Bosworth.”
Mr Pennington stares at us for several long seconds and then gives a delighted laugh, pointing at Ellis. “Ah, you almost had me there, but fool me once…” He waggles his finger before turning around and heading down the corridor towards the lobby.
“So it was a fake? As in a replica? A movie prop.”
“No,” Ellis says brightly as he picks up the axe head carefully and follows Mr Pennington. I hurry to keep pace with him. “It really was used at the Battle of Bosworth. It used to be mounted on the wall in the upstairs gallery, but it kept falling off because the head was loose. We took it down and put it in the storage room until we can afford to have it restored properly.”
“You’re all crazy,” I mutter as we step into the lobby and see Mr Pennington waiting for us, still clutching the handle of the axe.
“Ellis, did you say there was a concealed part of the ballroom?” Ellis nods. “Oh,” he gasps. “I’d love to see it. Would you mind?”
Ellis shrugs. “Okay,” he says simply. “I was going to give Morgan a tour of the house, but we can start there.”
He leads us across the lobby and into the bar where I notice a barely visible mop of white hair moving around behind the counter, and I shake my head in bewilderment. An octogenarianbartender that doesn’t speak. I guess I’ve seen it all now; then again, I get the feeling I’ve barely scraped the surface with this place. I’m almost afraid to see whatever’s coming next.
We cut through the bar and head into a lounge set with low tables and couches. It has the same art deco feel as the bar and although it’s worn with age, it’s actually remarkably well-preserved.
“Just behind that panel over there”—Ellis looks over his shoulder at me and then nods at a wall behind a low sofa—“there’s a secret passageway that runs from this room all the way diagonally under the house to the conservatory at the back of the house in the west wing.”
“Seriously?” My brows rise, and he nods again.
“We discovered it recently during the murder mystery weekend… or, well, Tristan and Danny did. They got engaged while they were staying here. It was so romantic. I mean, okay, there was a dead body there at the time and the police burst in, but Danny made the sweetest proposal. They are absolutely relationship goals in big blinky, shiny neon letters—GOALS.” He mouths the wordgoalsfor emphasis. “I’ve been messaging with Tris ever since they left.”