Chapter 7

That evening, after washing up the few dishes they had, they found themselves in the main front room of the cabin, surrounded with old movie artifacts.

"You said you bought this place from a movie producer?" Jake asked as he moved around the room touching and admiring all the instruments of ancient war on the walls. "What was his name?"

"Artie," Béla replied as she casually watched him. "Artie Penshaw."

"The Artie Penshaw?" Jake asked, grinning with surprise. "The one who made 'Back to Egypt, ' and 'The Warrior Queen'?"

"That would be him," admitted Béla.

"My God," Jake exclaimed, carefully lifting the battleaxe off its hooks. "Then this is the axe that beheaded..."

He stopped talking and was gazing raptly at the instrument of death. Then he brushed his fingers gently against the edge of the weapon. "There's blood on this. I think it might be real blood."

Béla had been watching him intently, wondering which instrument he would choose to use on her. With some distress, she watched him lift up that axe. She herself had placed it on that wall almost seventy years earlier, deliberately not cleaning the blood off it as a memorial to an unknown dead actress...