Mr Briggs' Hat: The True Story of a Victorian Railway Murder (28 page)

Müller was listening attentively, scribbling notes for Parry or leaning over the dock to speak with him. The spectators shifted their gaze momentarily towards the dock and then, as the prosecution’s first witness was summoned, turned their eyes back towards the stand.

One after the other, David Buchan, Caroline Buchan, the Fenchurch Street ticket collector Thomas Fishbourne, the clerks Harry Vernez and Sydney Jones, guard Benjamin Ames, engine driver Alfred Ekin, his train guard William Timms and the Bow police constable Edward Dougan were prompted by Serjeant Ballantine to repeat the stories they had told so many times before. None deviated from the substance of their past scripts and there was little for Serjeant Parry to establish in cross-examination. He focused only on David and Caroline Buchan, attempting to confirm the existence of threats made to their uncle. Both replied that they believed them to have existed but admitted that their knowledge was based on the reports of
others. Asking Caroline,
was it a person to whom he objected to send money?
Collier objected and was overruled, but Parry decided against repeating the question. Was this because he believed that he had planted the first seed of reasonable doubt? Or, given earlier newspaper reports that the man supposed to have threatened Briggs was a respected member of his community, did Parry know that this line of questioning was unlikely to yield results?

Of the doctors who had seen Briggs’ wounds at the Mitford Castle tavern and then performed the post-mortem, Parry cross-questioned only Francis Toulmin. The Briggs’ family doctor described the wounds to the top of Thomas Briggs’ head as being
inflicted by a blunt instrument, used with considerable force – the wound on the left ear I believe to have been also inflicted by a blunt instrument, but of that I will not speak so certainly; that was my impression.

Parry wondered why, if these blows were so violent, they were no deeper than half an inch? Was it not also possible that some of the injuries were caused by the fall from the train and was it not also true that the victim was considerably taller (at five feet eight inches) and heavier (at almost twelve stone) than the accused? Parry avoided mentioning the fact that Briggs was probably sitting when he was attacked and skirted the issue of the amount of blood in the carriage. He aimed only to suggest that Toulmin’s conclusions were by no means certain.

For the prosecution, Ballantine next asked Inspector Kerressey to describe the state of the carriage, the patent hook left in Briggs’ waistcoat buttonhole and the jump link discovered in the floor matting, aiming to establish that the victim’s watch and chain were violently wrenched from his person. Then Parry sprang from his seat, moving Kerressey’s evidence onto uncomfortable ground:

Do you know of a man called Thomas Lee?

I know Thomas Lee.

Was he examined by the coroner in your presence?

No, he was not.

Did you not hear … in the course of your enquiries in this case, that Mr Briggs was seen alive on the night of the murder at Bow Station, and that there were two people in the carriage with him?

The Solicitor General objected on the grounds that the question tended to introduce hearsay into the evidence. Parry countered tersely:
I apprehend that if he heard, in prosecuting his enquiries, a fact of so important a character as this, and that fact was kept from the jury in the opening speech for the Crown, I have a right to ask the witness whose special duty it was to investigate the case, whether it did not come to his notice.

Refusing to allow the defence an advantage, Judge Pollock ruled that the question could not be pressed. Was his judgement already formed? Parry was forced to retreat, scuppered from raising the spectre of those two men in Briggs’ compartment. Until Lee could take the stand for the defence, the issue of whether Briggs had company in the train on the night of his murder was inadmissible. The police knew that there were at least four people whose own experience strongly corroborated Lee’s statement but they were under no legal obligation to reveal this to the defence. Parry was unaware that Lee’s story had been substantiated by others. Had he known, he might have been able to force Inspector Kerressey to admit under oath that an alternative scenario for the murder existed. Instead – potentially damning for Müller – what the alert jury was most likely to remember from Kerressey’s deposition were his closing words:
I am sure the
[inside]
handle of the door was bloody. There was no blood on Mr Briggs’ hands.

Ballantine called the chemist Dr Letheby to describe the blood spatters on the glass and upholstery of the carriage, to confirm that their pattern was consistent with blows to the head and to testify that, from the existence of coagulum within it, the blood
had been living when it came on the glass
. Then it was the turn of John Death to recount the events of Monday 11 July. He said that the chain Müller had exchanged with him on that day (labelled Number 1) was missing the jump link designed to connect its two halves. Instead there was a common pin bent to form a loop and a piece of string.

Parry might have sought to question Death’s identification of Müller by asking whether the jeweller had not repeatedly seen Müller’s photograph during the voyage with Tanner to New York. Instead, Parry said that Müller admitted to visiting the shop but that it had been on an earlier occasion. Asking Death to look closely at the chain labelled Number 3 (Müller’s original, pawned chain), Parry wondered whether it was not the case that Müller had brought this chain to be mended during November 1863 and that he had paid one shilling and sixpence for the work? Death was sure that was not the case. Had Müller not returned during June 1864 to offer that chain for exchange? Again, Death was certain that he had never seen the prisoner before 11 July.

Take that chain
, ordered Parry,
and look at it carefully again and tell me whether a link has been broken.
Death examined the piece of jewellery labelled Number 3. Yes, he admitted, it showed signs of being mended. Was it not taken in for repair at his own shop? No, he was sure that he had never seen that chain before. Parry tried one last time. Was it not possible that he had served Müller as a customer weeks prior to the murder? Death said that he had no such recollection.

As the day inched forward Müller’s landlady Ellen Blyth told the court that he had worn the same clothes on Sunday 10 July as he had worn on the previous evening and that he had been lame in his right foot since 7 July, wearing a slipper instead of his usual boot on his bad foot. Questioned about the prisoner’s laundry, she admitted that she had washed six shirts for him before he left on the
Victoria
that week but said that all of them were new and none showed any traces of blood. George Blyth then
swore that the dark coat taken out of pawn by Hoffa and delivered to Scotland Yard was
very like
the one Müller wore on both days that weekend. Yes, they had walked with Müller on Sunday evening in Victoria Park, for close to three hours between six and nine o’clock. Under cross-examination, Parry strangely declined to ask either of the Blyths whether Müller had found the walk uncomfortable with this wounded ankle. Nor did he ask whether they recognised the battered hat with the striped lining.

Mrs Repsch was next. She also confirmed that Müller had injured his foot on Thursday 7 July and had taken to wearing a slipper on it. Also that when he worked at her house on the following Saturday Müller
wore a slipper during the day, on the right foot, in fact, he wore two slippers, because he was in the habit of taking off his boots when he came to my house, and putting on his slippers … I did not see him leave that night, I was out when he left.

Given the left slipper to examine, Mrs Repsch identified it and said,
I found
[it]
after he was gone – the right slipper was gone. He had his boots with him during the day, two boots – whether he came in them or not on the Saturday morning I can’t say – he might have had one in his pocket – the two boots were by the side when he changed them, to put on his slippers – when he left neither of those boots remained, they were both gone – he took away both boots, and one slipper.

Mrs Repsch testified that she thought Müller over-fond of finery and said that he had lied to her about being sent to America by Mr Hodgkinson. She was certain about all the details of Müller’s hats and particularly the lining of the one bought for him by Matthews:
It was a striped lining, a broad brown stripe, and a broad blue stripe edged with black and white – my attention was drawn to the lining from its being a peculiar lining – I never saw a hat lined with such a lining before … I have frequently seen him take off his hat, and I have frequently had it in my hands.
Shown the crushed hat recovered from under the seat
in the bloody carriage, she was firm:
To the best of my belief this is the hat – the lining is the same, and the merino also
.

Asked about the dark trousers Müller had supposedly worn on Saturday 9 July, she hissed accusingly that she had never seen them again. She also spoke of the new guinea hat he wore after the murder and the chain (Number 2, procured from John Death in exchange for Thomas Briggs’) that Müller had shown her on the morning of Monday 11 July.

Coming from her dark alley on the margins of a slum, Mrs Repsch was the least likeable of the array of witnesses compelled to stand and answer questions in the packed, hot court. Parry kept her longest to face his questions, hammering away at the fact of Müller’s bad foot, expressing disbelief that she could identify the crushed hat so clearly but could not describe the lining of her own husband’s. Could she then describe John Hoffa’s hat since he, too, was a constant visitor to 12½ Jewry Street?

No, I don’t know what sort of lining it has, not yet what sort of lining there is in any other man’s hat what comes to see my husband. It was the peculiarity of the lining in Müller’s hat that took my attention
.

Did you ever ask the prisoner to lend you five shillings?

No, sir.

Then she hesitated, coloured, swallowed and corrected herself.

Yes, I did.

Did Müller not refuse you most particularly because he wanted to buy a new hat? Did you not say to him, ‘Pooh! You may as well get one next week’?

I don’t think I did – I cannot swear it, because I do not remember it – I cannot swear it did not pass – I don’t remember his saying it.

In fact, on further consideration, Mrs Repsch thought that Müller
had
lent her the money but that she had paid it back to him. She thought he had never spoken of a new hat before she saw him on the 11th with the silk topper.

Was not her deposition motivated entirely, flashed Parry, by hope of the reward? Had not her husband known Matthews for six years? Did they not see the Matthews quite often? Despite her denials, as Parry swung away from Elizabeth Repsch the unarticulated suggestion that the Matthews and the Repschs were in league against Müller for their own profit hung in the air.

It was nearing quarter past four when Müller’s friend Hoffa was called. Beyond admitting to seeing Müller with a new chain and hat in the week of 11 July he was of no use to the prosecution. In particular, he had no idea what Müller was wearing when he left Jewry Street on Saturday evening. Responding to Parry’s questions, though, Hoffa said that his friend had announced his intention to sail for America at least a fortnight before he left, that he had seen Müller with enough money for his passage prior to the 9th, that he had been lame for several days and that he believed he had gone to see his sweetheart on the evening of 9 July. He understood that she lived in Camberwell. Parry was interested in the question of funds: what had happened to Müller’s money? Why had he had such difficulty in finding enough to pay for his fare? Hoffa only knew that the prisoner had been to the docks several times early that week and he thought he must have bought the new chain, watch, ring and hat there.

Finally, harking back to his cross-examination of John Death, Parry asked one more question: had Hoffa asked Müller to try to exchange a chain for him earlier that summer?
Yes
, said Hoffa,
but nothing came of it and he brought it back to me.

Parry’s questions had succeeded in suggesting the thread of a theory in support of Müller’s innocence. He had backed away from pressing the Buchans on the threats made to their uncle, had declined to argue with the medical men over the cause of Briggs’ death and had not succeeded in getting Kerressey to acknowledge Thomas Lee’s statement. But he had attached considerable importance to the fact of Müller’s lameness and he had
attempted to show that John Death misidentified Müller having done business with him in the months prior to the murder.

If Hoffa had been the last witness of the day, the jury may have left the court allowing that some small doubt attached itself to the prisoner’s guilt. Following the testimony of John Death, though, Judge Martin had summoned the jeweller’s brother. Robert Death had just arrived and there was sufficient time for him to take the stand. Ignorant of Parry’s line of questioning earlier in the afternoon he was also shown chain Number 3 (Müller’s chain) and denied ever having seen it before:
it is such a peculiar one that I should remember it if I had
.

It was a quarter to five o’clock. Robert Death’s corroboration of his brother’s statement that Müller had never been in their shop before 11 July weakened Parry’s contention.

The court was adjourned, the judges rose and the room began to empty of its chattering crowd. The jury, forbidden from separating and cautioned against speaking to anyone outside their group for the duration of the trial, were sent to lodge in the London Coffee House in nearby Ludgate Hill, where they would be watched by officers of the sheriff.