Mr Briggs' Hat: The True Story of a Victorian Railway Murder Read Online Free Page B

the man by whom the violence was committed. Before proceedings were brought to a close, however, the foreman of the jury asked to make a statement on behalf of them all. They wished to call the attention of the government to their dissatisfaction at the present state of security on the railways. No delay should be allowed – they said – in enforcing the railway companies to adopt more efficient methods of protection of life, character and property.
    The room emptied. Police and witnesses were all running late for their next appointment at the Bow Street Magistrates’ Court. Dispersing, they left the thirteen men of the inquest jury waitingto discharge their final duty by adding their signatures to an indictment, stating on their oaths that Franz Müller, late of Bow, did feloniously wilfully and of his malice aforethought kill and murder against the peace of Our Lady the Queen her Crown and dignity the said Thomas Briggs.
    In the rush, did any of the jurymen notice that a mistake had been rapidly corrected in the official documentation? So closely did the names Franz Müller and Thomas Briggs elide in the public mind that in the space reserved for the name of the victim ‘ Thomas Müller ’ was recorded, before the clerk dashed it out and corrected it to Briggs.
    *
    Those fortunate enough to secure a seat on the public benches at the Bow Street court earlier that morning had endured a long and uncomfortable wait. At ten past eleven, more than an hour late, the witnesses arrived, grumbling that they had been given no pause to rest or take refreshment and that, summoned hither and thither across the capital, their lives no longer seemed their own.
    When did you first hear of the huge reward? solicitor Beard asked of both Godfrey and Elizabeth Repsch once each had given their evidence to the magistrate. Neither was able to say. How were they able to remember with such precision the trousers Müller had worn on any day prior to Saturday the 9th, or even after it? Could they describe in detail the lining or shape of any of their own hats, or the hats of their friends, or even of the new ‘guinea’ hat Müller was wearing when he visited them the week after the murder? Again, neither the husband nor the wife was able to do so.
    Reporters came and went, taking copious notes for the several editions of the day’s newspapers. Beard pushed Toulmin – the Briggs’ family doctor – about finding grit in the wounds on the victim’s head, suggesting that death had been caused by the fall from the train. Toulmin countered that the great quantity ofblood found on the carriage seats and the nature of the forceful, blunt wounds demonstrated that a violent attack had occurred before the fall. Called next to testify, young Dr Brereton concurred that these were the blows that had fractured the skull and that they were more likely to have caused death than the fall from the train.
    Müller appeared at last to have snapped into life. Gone was the unmoved and unmoving defendant: following the verdict of the inquest, he seemed finally to have woken up to the gravity of his situation. He listened to Dr Brereton’s descriptions of Thomas Briggs’ injuries with equanimity but when any other portion of the evidence told against him he became animated, scribbling notes for his solicitor and engaging him from time to time in earnest discussion. When Matthews took the stand, Müller’s face lit with anger and his eyes never left the witness throughout his testimony as Thomas Beard once again harried the cab driver to account for his whereabouts on 9 July. Again he could not.
    You ought to know exactly. You have reason to remember it , reproved Beard. It made no odds. Matthews remained obstinate and unyielding.
    Yes, I know I have , he barked.
    Late into the afternoon a new witness was called by Hardinge Giffard. Daniel Digance was asked to take the stand. Rumours that the police had procured new evidence from Thomas Briggs’ hatters were