Mr Briggs' Hat: The True Story of a Victorian Railway Murder (29 page)

Franz Müller was led quietly back through the underground passage to his Newgate cell.

CHAPTER 28

The Trial: Second Day

When dawn broke at a little after quarter to seven on Friday 28 October Müller was already dressed and ready, his habitual reserve replaced by an anxious watchfulness. Jonathan Matthews, his most damaging detractor, would be called today. The prosecution would then rest its case – the worst of the trial over.

Proceedings resumed at ten o’clock. First to be called was Müller’s old co-worker John Henry Glass, followed by three pawnbrokers’ assistants from separate businesses in Houndsditch and Minories. Central to the prosecution’s case was the need to establish that Müller had been short of cash – that he could not have paid for his ticket to America in any other way than through robbery, and that it was not possible that he could have afforded to buy an expensive watch, chain or ring from a vagrant at the docks. Glass testified that Müller had earned about thirty shillings a week – just enough to cover his rent, food and clothing. The prisoner’s habitual need to pawn his belongings further evinced that he had not earned enough to put aside any savings.

The testimonies of Glass and the pawnbrokers’ men proved that in early June Müller had pawned his old watch and chain at
Barker’s in Houndsditch, raising three pounds. Following Müller’s supposed exchange of Mr Briggs’ chain with John Death on Monday the 11th for another worth three pounds, ten shillings, he had taken this ‘new’ chain on Tuesday to Mr Annis’ pawnbrokers in Minories and received thirty shillings for it, using the money to reclaim his own watch. On Wednesday 13 July, Glass lent Müller one pound in order to redeem his old chain. Now the two men took Müller’s old watch and chain and pawned them both in Leicester Square for four pounds – about three weeks’ salary. Glass bought the ticket from Müller for five shillings. Undoubtedly, therefore, Müller owned four pounds and five shillings on Wednesday 13 July, besides some few shillings he had raised with the help of Elizabeth Repsch who had pawned one of his coats. On that day, he purchased his ticket for the
Victoria
.

The various transactions showed that, had Müller come by Thomas Briggs’ possessions by robbery, he had profited only a paltry thirty shillings from his dealings. When added to the money raised from pawning his old watch and chain, this just covered the price of a ticket to sail while allowing him to keep Briggs’ valuable gold pocket watch. Set against this, Hoffa had previously testified that he had seen Müller in possession of two or three pounds in the days before 9 July – enough, with a bit of scrambling, to pay for the passage without resorting to crime.

Broadly, the convoluted deals were easy enough for the court to understand, though the maths was tricky to remember. Two things counted. First, all three very different chains were held aloft in court, each representative of stolid respectability against impoverished graft; all three were glittering reminders of a motive for murder. Secondly, Parry would need to establish that Müller had funds prior to the 9th, in order to have bought Briggs’ stolen watch and chain in good faith. Since the prosecution did not recall John Hoffa, he was unavailable for cross-examination and his testimony would have to wait for the
defence. Meanwhile, the impression that Müller had been in desperate need prior to 9 July was allowed to settle in the minds of the jury.

Despite the array of circumstantial evidence against Müller, the prosecution were unable to place him at the scene of the murder. Additionally, on the first day of the trial, the Blyths and the Repschs had given conflicting accounts of the clothing worn by him on and after 9 July. According to Elizabeth Repsch, a pair of dark trousers was missing but the remainder of his coats, shirts and trousers appeared to be accounted for, and none showed any evidence of blood. It had also been proven that the injury to Müller’s foot took place on Thursday the 7th and that he was still using a slipper on Saturday the 9th. Despite the fact that he went walking with the Blyths on Sunday evening, this suggested that he had been unable to move fast.

The broken Walker hat and the ‘cut-down’ silk Digance hat remained in full view on the lawyers’ central table, symbols both of a violated man and of his attacker. The identification and ownership of each lay at the heart of the case.

The prosecution now turned its attention to the first of these hats. Several spectators stood to get a better look as the insolent cabman, whose appearance had been awaited with excitement, was summoned. Matthews entered the court to a buzz of interest, looking altogether more nervous than on any previous occasion. In the dock, Müller visibly brightened. Leaning forward with strained attention, taking up his pen, he passed notes to Parry throughout the hour of Matthews’ examination.

Matthews mumbled as he outlined the circumstances surrounding his purchase of a hat for Müller from Walker’s of Crawford Street, the distinguishing curl to the brim, and the thumbmark on the underside. His evidence was peppered with interjections from Parry urging him to
Speak up, sir, do!
, and when Ballantine’s questions were done Parry rose to cross-examine. Müller had admitted that Matthews once bought a hat
for him. Parry’s intention now was to disprove that the hat in court was the one.

Allow me that hat, please
, he snapped, turning it over in his hands calmly as he took possession of it.

I believe your own hat is like it?

As nearly as possible.

Musing on this answer, Parry repeated it aloud. But if Matthews was expecting a repetition of the bludgeoning he had taken from Müller’s solicitor Beard in the earlier hearings, he was now surprised. Instead, Parry asked for copies of the depositions given by the cabman both to the coroner and the Bow Street magistrate. Instead of fixing ownership of the hat on Matthews, he aimed to show that Matthews’ evidence varied each time he was under oath.

Can you tell me how many hats you bought within six or twelve months of the 9th of July?

I cannot tell you.

What has become of your last hat at the time of this one?

I cannot say. I think I left it at a hatter’s shop where I bought another.

Where did you buy the hat you now wear?

In Oxford Street, at Mr Mummery’s.

Have you not stated that you left it at Mr Down’s in Long Acre three weeks before 9th July?

I said that I left one there. I did not say the time I did so … I did not state the time.

Did you not say this: ‘I purchased the hat at Down’s Long Acre. I left the old one there.’

I did say so.

That is not true?

No, it was not it exactly. It was longer ago. I cannot remember exactly.

Parry’s team had discovered that Down’s hatters had gone out of business. Matthews could not have bought his new hat there
at the time he said, and could not have left his old one behind. What, then, had become of Matthews’ Walker hat? And how could he account for what appeared to be lies under oath?

Under Parry’s badgering, Matthews sputtered that, until he came to consider it on his return from New York, he had not realised how many hats he owned. He admitted that his evidence to the coroner had contained mistakes. He could not remember what he did with his Walker hat and was unable to describe the lining in any of his own hats, despite being so particular about the lining in Müller’s. Initially he swore that he was
not a public house visitor, perhaps I may go there sometimes
, but he soon confessed that he usually visited an inn daily. Moving on swiftly, Parry then expressed sarcastic astonishment that a cab driver in London could claim to have heard nothing about the murder until over a week after it occurred. His questions came like bullets.

Do you take in a newspaper? Did you not see notice of the murder in large, conspicuous letters on the placards? Do you attend the station at Paddington? Do you pass the police station every day?

Now, can you tell me what you were doing on Saturday the 9th of July?

I was out in my cab, I find.

Did you not say before the coroner ‘it is impossible for me to say where I was’?

I did say so. I have made enquiries since.

So, since you were before the coroner, you have been making enquiries with a view of giving evidence here?

I had lost my pocket book, but I have found it since.

Matthews produced a letter, dated 29 September, from his employer. Parry took it, but declined to read it.

I believe your master failed, or was ‘sold up’ to use your own expression?

He sold off.

This is another mistake, then?

Yes.

Is it a mistake in the depositions?

Yes.

Parry had been hammering away for close to an hour. Had the cab driver ever been insolvent? Had he ever failed in business? How many creditors did he have? Had he not said that were he to get the reward it would hardly cover his debts? That if he had waited a little longer the reward would have mounted from three hundred to five hundred pounds? However much he denied the insinuations, Parry’s contemptuous repetition of the same questions often led Matthews to back down, changing his answer and – Parry must have hoped – shaking his credibility with the jury
.

Were you ever in prison?

Matthews admitted that he had been, in Norwich in 1850 for absconding from his employment as a coach driver. He admitted he had gone on
a spree
, was convicted and served twenty-one days in gaol. Parry knew that this was only half the truth.

Were you not convicted for having feloniously stolen a posting book, value eight shillings; a spur, value two shillings; and a padlock, value sixpence? Was not that the conviction?

That was what they brought in because they found them in the box, unbeknown to me … I did not know they were there.

It was not a very serious charge but it did mark out Matthews as having been convicted in the past for theft. Parry now returned to the business of the hats, asking Matthews – twice – whether the lining of his Walker hat was the same as the lining of the hat exhibited in court. Twice Matthews responded that it was merely
similar
.

Did you not say that the lining of both hats was the same, as nearly as possible?

Matthews faltered unconvincingly.
I cannot say exactly.

Another
Oh!
went up from the court.

Under re-examination, the Solicitor General attempted to
restore Matthews’ credibility. Was it correct that Matthews was now thirty-eight years old, that he had been only nineteen or twenty at the time of his
spree
, and that he had never been in any kind of trouble since? Had he since had the chance to write to his previous employer to confirm whether he was working on the night of the murder?

Yes
, replied Matthews,
and I was on the cab-stand from seven o’clock until eleven o’clock at the Great Western Railway … Then I went homewards. I bought a joint of meat and took it home. I went to the stable yard, and left the cab in Lisson Grove, I then went home
.

Matthews was dismissed. Parry had ensured that he left the court with the impression both that his evidence was variable and that he had been assisted prior to the commencement of the trial in order to make his story more credible. At the same time, the country’s anticipation that lurid details of the man’s criminal past would emerge had not been met: a minor offence committed by a young wastrel, his previous conviction did not define him as a person of abandoned character. Parry had not managed to prove him a delinquent, but Matthews’ shuffling and prevarication, the improbability of his statement that he had not heard of the murder until after Müller had sailed and his imputed desire for the reward had
injured his standing
as the prosecution’s central witness. As the
Daily Telegraph
reported,
his character is, to say the least, not altogether of a description to give additional weight to his testimony
.

There was nothing new in the evidence given by Matthews’ wife. The sun went down, the light dimmed and the courtroom’s stuffiness increased as the gas lamps were lit. The owner and the foreman of Walker’s hatters were called and a peculiar fact emerged which appeared to take both the prosecution and defence by surprise. It turned out that the broad-striped lining of the hat found in the carriage was rare, a piece of French fabric included in a batch of samples that had only been large enough to use on two – or perhaps four – hats. This was extraordinary.
It meant that potential ownership of the broken hat found at the crime scene was limited to fewer than five people in the entire country. Caught off guard, neither the prosecution nor the defence appeared to recognise its significance and neither thought to make use of the fact for their own advantage.

George Clarke was called, then Inspector Richard Tanner. When Müller’s travelling trunk was brought in and its meagre contents displayed, a juryman asked to be shown the tailor’s shears and they were passed around the jury box and examined carefully. This was odd, since the prosecution had never suggested they could have been used to kill Thomas Briggs: on the contrary, Briggs’ wounds had been imputed to a heavy, blunt instrument.

Lastly, Daniel Digance and then his hatmaker Frederick Thorne took the stand. Both testified that the silk topper found in New York had been sold from Digance’s shop. Both believed it had been made for Thomas Briggs due to its size and the fragments of tissue paper still adhering to the lining, but since the part that would have borne his name had been cut away neither was able to swear conclusively that the hat had ever belonged to the old man.