Free Mr Briggs' Hat: The True Story of a Victorian Railway Murder by Kate Colquhoun Page A

conversations. An arm’s length from the dock the lawyers round the green baize table talked to one another at the tops of their voices – the scene in court , reported the Telegraph , was very like that presented by a betting ring before a great race is going to be run .
    Conspicuously alone, Müller seemed to be making a desperate effort to appear composed. From time to time, Thomas Beard leaned over to speak to him, attempting to support his client during the awful interval of suspense.
    Jury deliberations were often quick – in 1864 juries were still denied fire, food or refreshment in an effort to discourage delays – but after scarcely a quarter of an hour the twelve men of the jury filed back in, taking the court by surprise. Following them into court, Judge Pollock entered without Baron Martin. Müller was asked to stand. The call went up for silence.
    Gentlemen, are you agreed upon your verdict?
    We are.
    How do you find the prisoner at the bar – guilty or not guilty of the murder with which he is charged?
    There is no record of whether any of the jurymen looked at Müller standing immobile in the dock, waiting for the verdict that would decide his fate.
    Guilty.
    That is the verdict of you all?
    Yes.
    *
    The jury believed that the hat left in the carriage was Müller’s hat and that he therefore must have been there. They presumed that his possession of Briggs’ hat and gold watch at the time of his arrest was the direct result of his crime. They did not believe that Müller’s visit to Camberwell precluded his ability to have been on the North London Railway at the time of the murder. They disregarded the evidence of Thomas Lee perhaps because he could not satisfactorily account for his delay in coming forward: a whiff of shiftiness, cast over him by the prosecution, had stuck. Parry had failed to cast suspicion on Jonathan Matthews, or to make enough of the existing injury to Müller’s foot. He had not convinced the jury that Briggs’ death had resulted from injuries sustained as he fell from the train, nor that there was enough doubt surrounding the murder weapon or the true ownership of the hats to force an alternative verdict. He seemed also to have forgotten to make it clear to the jury that the evidence of the omnibus conductor independently substantiated the claim Müller made in his New York press interview that he had been in Camberwell on the night of the murder.
    The jury was unanimous, and they made no recommendation to mercy. The second judge, Martin, arrived back in court in his billowing robes as the Clerk of the Arraigns spoke towards thedock: Prisoner at the bar, you have been convicted of the crime of wilful murder. Have you anything to say why judgement of death should not be given? Involuntarily, Müller’s firmly compressed upper lip began to twitch. He shook his head.
    Placing a piece of black cloth over his wig , Martin addressed the prisoner. Prisoner at the bar , you have been found guilty by the jury of the wilful murder of Mr Briggs … It is usual with judges to state, in passing sentence, if they entirely concur in that verdict, and they do so for two reasons … I am authorised to state that we are perfectly satisfied with that verdict and I state so in order to remove entirely from your mind the possibility that you will live in this world much longer … I beseech you to avail yourself of the means of making your peace with your Maker. I wish to remove from your mind any hope of alteration of the sentence. I feel no more doubt that you committed this murder than I do with reference to the occurrence of any other event of which I am certain but which I did not see with my own eyes …
    The sentence is that you be taken from here to the prison from whence you came, that from thence you be taken to a place of execution, that there you be hanged by the neck till your body be dead; that your body when dead be taken down and that it be buried within the precincts of the prison