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

Author:Kate Colquhoun [Colquhoun, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: True Crime, General
ISBN: 9780748115679
Google: KWgUxH9xrj8C
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2011-05-04T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 24

First Judgement

No one outside Müller’s legal team knew how he intended to defend himself but it is not expected, reported Reynolds’s Weekly Newspaper, that he will disclose the nature of the defence … until the trial. It was said that the prisoner was eating well but that his spirits were low as he continued to claim his innocence to the officers guarding his cell.

Snippets of new information that suggested developments in the prosecution’s case began to appear in the press. Inspector Tanner had questioned a shopman employed by Digance hatters in the Royal Exchange (Thomas Briggs’ hatters) and the man was said distinctly to remember selling the hat found in Müller’s luggage to Mr Briggs, recognising it by a peculiar alteration made in the lining to make it fit more comfortably. It was also reported that Mr Digance was in the habit of marking the inside brim of all the hats he sold with the date of their sale. Should that be so, wrote The Times, and the date be found, it will materially affect the issue.

It also appeared that several people were rushing to gain from the poor tailor’s infamy. The sale of souvenirs relating to causes célèbres was a highly profitable business and copyright piracy was rife. Press reports now confirmed that Thomas Beard was acting on behalf of Mr A. L. Henderson, a ‘photographiartist’ (as he called himself) in the City. Henderson accused another man of copyright infringement in the printing and sale of photographs of Franz Müller and the forgery and sale of a carte-de-visite made earlier that year for the German. Henderson contended that Müller had paid him to take his likeness in December 1863 but had left one print behind, along with its negative. A week or so after the detectives left for New York, realising the value of this image, Henderson had registered copyright and began to publish it. The sale of the photograph, claimed Beard, had been such a great success that it had caused parties to pirate.

Over the intervening weekend most of the illustrated papers carried drawings of Müller copied from Henderson’s photograph, alongside representations of the surging crowds on his arrival at Bow Street police station the previous Saturday. Not even in the annals of crime can be found a case that has created more general interest than this of the murder of Mr Briggs, wrote the Penny Illustrated Paper under their portrait of the prisoner. It has every element of the sensational kind that a sensation-loving public can possibly desire … Doubt hangs over the affair … Müller’s own behaviour remains as wonderful as ever. He has continued to act to the last exactly as an innocent man might be supposed to act.

Quiet and respectful, Müller’s character was particularly at odds with the bravado of Matthews and it was said that Müller had complained to his German-speaking police guard about the cab driver’s evidence at Bow Street that week. He was apparently bitter about his old friend’s falseness,

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