George didn’t wait to ask any questions. He brought the lethal-looking weapon straight down on the head of one of the men holding Sophy and he went down like a stone, and as Sophy jerked herself free of the second man George struck him too, causing him to stagger backwards with blood pouring from his smashed nose and teeth. George wasn’t a small man and he was built like a wrestler and as tough as old boots, neither did he hold to fighting within the constriction of the Queensberry Rules.
The two men who had been holding Sadie had jumped to their feet but seemed uncertain as to what to do, and as Rupert shouted, ‘Get him! Get him!’ they still hesitated, clearly intimidated by the fury and prowess of the man in front of them. Rupert had grabbed his walking-stick, which he brought with a thwack round the side of George’s shoulders, and as the other two men made to join him, one was hit from behind with a heavy vase which Sadie had picked up and used with unerring accuracy.
George was bellowing like an enraged bull and as he swiped wildly with the thick club and caught Rupert on the arm, the crack of bone and Rupert’s shriek of pain added to the mayhem.
Leaving their two cronies who were out cold on the floor, Rupert and the other two who could still walk fled the scene, with George following them and still aiming blows halfway up the street, before he turned and ran back to the house. By now the neighbours either side of the house had been alerted and were on the doorstep, and lights had gone on in several other residences.
It was ten minutes before someone returned with two burly constables. By then, Sophy and Sadie were sitting swathed in blankets on one of the sofas drinking a cup of tea that Mrs Webb, from next door, had made. George was standing guard over the two unconscious men who were still stretched out on the carpet amidst blood and splintered pieces of fine Meissen porcelain, a couple of the neighbours at his elbow.
The two constables surveyed the scene in front of them as Sophy explained what had happened, and then looked at George who was still holding the cudgel in case one of his victims came to and attempted to make a run for it. ‘We could do with you on the force, mate,’ one said dryly.
George didn’t smile. ‘Thank God I was checking one of Maggie’s hooves and hadn’t driven straight off, else I might not have known anything was amiss.’
Sophy echoed the sentiment. But for George this night might have ended very differently. Now the danger was over, she found she couldn’t stop shaking.
Over the next hour or two the assailants were taken away in the police wagon to hospital, statements were taken and descriptions given of the three men who had escaped. The fact that Sophy knew the name of one of them caused the constables to smile in satisfaction. They were solid, working-class men and had little time for the idle Hooray Henrys of the world, especially those who abused their position and wealth.
It was four o’clock in the morning before everyone left, and Sophy and Sadie sat looking at each other in the kitchen where Sadie had made the umpteenth pot of tea of the night. ‘And you say they came in using a key?’ Sophy asked for the third time in as many minutes. ‘But how? Where would they have got it and how did they know it was the key to this house?’
Sadie bit her lip. Sophy wasn’t a stupid woman, far from it, and it had been clear the way the constables’ minds had been working when she’d told them about the key and they had asked all those questions about Mr Shawe, but Sophy was shutting her eyes to it. Deciding plain speaking was in order, she said gently, ‘As far as I know there’s only you, me and Mr Shawe who’s got a key to the house, ma’am. I’ve got mine and you’ve got yours, so . . .’
‘No.’
‘I think it’s a possibility we have to consider.’
‘No.’ Sophy was working the fingers of her left hand into the skin of her throat, and becoming aware of this, she made herself stop. Toby was weak and foolish and had become increasingly unpredictable and violent over the latter days of their marriage, but he would never do anything like this to her. He wouldn’t. It was unthinkable. There was a different explanation, there had to be.
‘No,’ she said for the third time. ‘I know him, Sadie, and all his faults, but this? He wouldn’t.’
Sadie made no reply. She felt in her water that Mr Shawe was behind this and her water was never wrong. She was going to send for Mr Gregory in the morning and ask him to arrange for the front door to be mended and the locks changed, and see what he said. Herself, she wouldn’t put anything past Toby Shawe. If ever a man was going to hell riding on a handcart, it was him. But Sophy wouldn’t see it, she’d never see it.