Mr Briggs' Hat: The True Story of a Victorian Railway Murder (27 page)

Important trials were always conducted in the
Old Court
, a space endlessly criticised as small and dingy. The Lord Mayor
with all the pomp of his office, the sheriffs, the aldermen of the City of London in purple silk and fur and the recorder were arranged either side of the two judges’ raised, crimson-cushioned bench. Before them in the open space of the body of the court, solicitors and wigged, black-gowned barristers huddled round an unsightly deal table covered in green baize and littered with briefcases and papers. Behind them were cramped benches for reporters, friends of the judges, and hangers-on.

Two narrow benches for the twelve jurymen were ranged to the right of the judges. Before them was the commodious dock. With a wooden bar to its front and a rear staircase leading to the cells beneath, it contained three seats: one for the governor of Newgate, another for the warder and a third for the prisoner who had only recently been released from the obligation to stand. The public were accommodated in a limited number of wooden pews rising in tiers above and behind the dock.

The courtroom had three large and three smaller windows and was lit by gas lamps, notwithstanding which the dark, wood-panelled room was gloomy and badly ventilated. Seven separate doors led from it, each reserved for the particular use of the judges, jury, witnesses, counsel, solicitors, prisoner or public. The witness room on one side was so small that it was often left simply to the women, male witnesses sent to wait in the draughty passageways or at
Allwood’s coffee and dining rooms
across the road. Called into court, each witness would have to pass directly in front of the prisoner in the dock, taking a seat to his right-hand side.

On the open floor of the Old Court, the battle between prosecution and defence would be waged between members of a serious-minded, close-knit clique well used to pitting their wits against each other. The Solicitor General Sir Robert Collier – an eloquent, brilliant advocate noted not only for his versatility but also for his accomplishment at billiards – would lead the prosecution with
William Ballantine
, the counsel once mooted as the
GLPS’s favourite to defend Müller, undertaking most of the work. Ballantine – credited with being the original of Trollope’s scruffy Chaffenbrass in
Orley Farm
, published two years earlier
–
had failed in his defence of the murderess Maria Manning but he was a stellar counsel, dominating juries with his curiously hesitant drawl and his charm. With a name as a
verdict getter
, Ballantine had a violent temper and excelled at bullying, bitterly sarcastic cross-examination. He never gave an inch.

With the addition of prosecution juniors known for their accurate, precise and painstaking work, these men constituted a formidable legal team but the GLPS had not let Müller down. Leading his defence, Serjeant John Humffreys Parry was a brilliant counsel. Chief prosecutor in the trial of James Mullins, side-whiskered, heavy-lidded and with bushy black brows and a thrusting chin, Parry was known as one of the most dramatic and successful advocates of his generation. Renowned for his ‘admirable’ voice, the clarity and simplicity of his statements and his affecting tact, he frequently got the better of Ballantine in court. Despite the fact that he had won many convictions for murder when acting as prosecutor, he was also one of a very small group of lawyers
opposed to the death penalty
on the grounds that real villains were often acquitted by juries squeamish about sending a man to the gallows. It was an understanding of human nature that he had previously used to his advantage.

Just as the police had been proscribed from questioning Müller after his arrest, English law held that, in capital cases, prisoners and their spouses were
incompetent witnesses
. Aside from making their pleas of guilty or not guilty right at the start of a trial, defendants were never allowed to speak. The imposition of silence was designed to protect them from self-incrimination under cross-examination but it also effectively barred them from articulating their own version of events. Forty-one witnesses for the prosecution and eight for the defence would successively be questioned and cross-examined, but Müller would not speak,
forced by the law to rely on what his barrister, John Parry, would say on his behalf.

Gathered in one place for the first time, the array of
trial witnesses
represented a cross-section of the working life of London rarely seen outside a Dickens novel or Henry Mayhew’s journalism. Ticket-takers and railway guards, pawnbrokers’ assistants, clerks, cabbies, watchmakers, hatmakers, jewellers and tailors would all take the stand and, to satisfy public demand, the papers planned to run several extra editions each day with reports published in instalments. All would be sent across the country and to the continent by the operators of the electric telegraph.

Everyone knew the bare facts of the case: the blood-spattered state of carriage 69, the discovery of the Walker hat, bag and cane, the theft of Thomas Briggs’ watch and chain, and the silk hat and gold watch found in Müller’s possession on his arrest in New York. The case against the prisoner included the Blyths’ testimony that he did not return home until after eleven o’clock on the night of the attack, John Death’s evidence that Müller had exchanged Briggs’ stolen chain at his shop in Cheapside and Matthews’ assertion that he had purchased the Walker hat on behalf of the tailor. There was the fact that Müller’s foot was injured, and the often-repeated pawnshop deals that suggested that he was in need of cash in the week before he left.

The potential fallibility of these kinds of ‘proof’ had been widely debated. It remained to be seen whether the prosecution had uncovered something less equivocal that would absolutely fix Müller at the scene of the crime. Would they be able to identify a murder weapon and conclusively link it to him? Would the various testimonies of their witnesses ultimately combine to prove the impossibility of this man’s innocence?

Would John Parry have enough solid information regarding an alibi to counter the prosecution’s claims? Or would he, instead, rely on disabling their case by the introduction of doubt? No blood had been found on any of Müller’s clothing and a number
of witnesses confirmed that the injury to his ankle had occurred several days before 9 July. Would Parry be able to show that the tailor had bought the watch and chain at the docks as had already been suggested? Most crucially, what would the jury make of Thomas Lee’s statement about the two unidentified men? Was it possible that Lee’s testimony alone would introduce enough uncertainty to force the jury’s hand? None of the court reporters underestimated Parry’s ability to stand his ground before the collective force of Sir Robert Collier and William Ballantine.

Earlier that morning Müller, neatly dressed in a plain brown ‘cutaway’ coat buttoned tightly to the chin, had been led through the subterranean stone tunnel running between Newgate and the Old Bailey. Weak light filtered through the metal grilles overhead. Heavy, barred gates were unlocked and resecured as he passed. Arriving in a paved room beneath the courtroom, he waited behind sturdy iron gates at the foot of some steps. When the call came at ten o’clock, this grave and boyish man mounted the stairs accompanied by the governor of Newgate and a warder, and emerged into the court. All eyes turned.

Stepping forward, taking in the judges in their long wigs and crimson robes and the crush of lawyers with their mass of papers, Müller rested his hands on the bar of the dock, resolutely refusing to look to his left or right.

CHAPTER 27

The Trial: First Day

Franz Müller, you are indicted that you did, on the 9th July, in the present year, maliciously, wilfully, and of malice aforethought, kill and murder Thomas Briggs. Are you
guilty or not guilty
?

Not guilty.

You are entitled to be tried by a jury partly composed of foreigners.

Serjeant Parry (for the prisoner):
He wishes to be tried by twelve Englishmen.

This took the court by surprise. Aliens were entitled to be tried by a jury
de medietate linguae
– one half consisting of foreigners of any nationality. Müller’s wish not to take up the prerogative was so unexpected that a murmur ran through the room. It was a smart tactic. Parry was creating the impression that Müller would behave with all the unflinching honour expected of an Englishman, reinforcing the powerful effect of his calm, passive exterior. He might be a foreigner, but he did not behave like a scoundrel.

The next hour was dull. Parry had the right to object to any members of the jury but he was bullish and instead demanded
that the names of all potential jurors be drawn by ballot in order to ensure that the final group included men taken from the panels of diverse neighbourhoods and counties. A compromise was reached. After several objections twelve men were sworn, all from the lower-middle classes: small-businessmen including a lodging-house keeper, a tobacconist, a grocer, a blacksmith, a tallow chandler, a victualler and a handful of accountancy clerks. They ranged in age from eighteen to forty-five.

The Solicitor General rose to open the case for the Crown. Cool, rational and restrained, he went straight to the nub.
Gentlemen, this is a case which has excited unusual and painful interest
, he began,
one which … has been canvassed and discussed in almost every newspaper, I might say almost every house in the kingdom; and it is one on which some persons might be inclined already to form an opinion
. He entreated the jury to discard everything they might have heard or read and to try the prisoner on the evidence alone.

This was traditional etiquette in the opening of a capital trial: the promise of reason over emotion, the elimination of the possibility that the prisoner would be made a scapegoat. Drawing attention to the
utmost
skill and eloquence of Müller’s defence, Collier aimed also to remove residual pity for the apparent powerlessness of the prisoner at the bar. Then, by recognising the painful duty of the jurors, he emphasised the grave responsibility of their task. Over the next hour he dwelt on the seriousness of the crime and on the esteem in which Thomas Briggs had been held. Outlining the basic facts against Müller, he promised to exhibit Briggs’ stick and his hat, watch and chain. He lingered over descriptions of the victim’s injuries and, indicating the model of carriage 69, he pointed out each place where blood was found – human blood, without a doubt, on the evidence of Dr Letheby who would shortly be called to testify. They would see the stick found in the carriage: a stick that may have received its bloody stains merely by being present in the carriage but which
may also have been
powerfully wielded by the murderer … swinging it around with great violence to inflict the injuries Mr Briggs sustained.

Collier spoke of
the plain and simple facts
, in rhetoric designed to transfix the assembly. He enumerated the witnesses, outlining how each one of their depositions would substantiate a sequence of accusations. He would show how close Müller lived to the route of the North London Railway and to the place where the body was discovered. The evidence of Mr and Mrs Repsch, Jonathan and Eliza Matthews, the silversmith John Death and others would each forge and prove a link in the chain of facts that told against him.

Taking care to avoid any reference to the statement made by Thomas Lee, Collier set about deflating doubt about whether
the violence was committed by one person only or by more than one person
. It was his opinion that just one man was responsible for the deed, for he believed that a number of thieves would have rifled Briggs’ pockets and stolen his other valuables. In the absence of any motive other than theft he posited that
the murder was the result of some sudden determination
, an impulsive rather than a premeditated act. What it came down to, he stated with some force, was that the stolen items were found on Müller and – more – Müller’s own hat had mistakenly been left behind at the scene of the crime. He would set out to prove this beyond doubt. He would show that Müller had no alibi and he would recount Müller’s movements during the week following the murder including visits on which he showed off a new watch, chain and hat, offering several different accounts about their origin. He would show that a series of pawnbroker deals involving the stolen goods could be traced back to the German tailor, proving that he was in great financial need prior to the fateful weekend.

Collier’s speech was punctuated with the words,
Gentlemen, the case does not rest here
. He stacked the weight of circumstantial evidence until Müller appeared irrevocably pinioned by
it.
Undoubtedly
, Collier continued,
the evidence in this case is what is called circumstantial evidence chiefly, but I may remind you that it is by circumstantial evidence that great crimes are most frequently detected. Murders are not committed in the presence of witnesses and to reject circumstantial evidence would be to proclaim immunity to crime … Gentlemen, I venture to think that if these circumstances are proved to you by witnesses, a stronger case of circumstantial evidence has rarely, if ever, been submitted to a jury.

Faced with any reasonable doubts, he intoned, then the jury must acquit, but again he emphasised that the proof against the defendant was formidable. His opinion was irrelevant, he thundered disingenuously, but theirs counted: if they were convinced that the prisoner had indeed maliciously and violently murdered Thomas Briggs then they must not hesitate or shy from their duty. Silently looking each of them in the eye, Sir Robert Collier then turned and resumed his seat.