All this came to Matthews in a rush, and, mixing good citizenship with licking his lips at the prospect of a reward, he set off immediately for his home in the Lisson Grove area to see if he could find the box that Muller had given to his daughter. He found it and took it to the local police station. He gave the police a description of Muller, and even a photograph, which got them quite excited. They became less excited when he told them not to bother searching London for Muller because he had just left England for New York and a new life in the United States of America. This was something he had apparently been talking about for a while. When Death was shown the photograph of Muller, he felt almost certain that it was the foreign-sounding young man he had done business with.
However, the police now had something to work on, and they quickly found out that Muller had pawned a number of objects, including the watch chain he had obtained from Death’s shop in order to raise the fare as a steerage passenger on the sailing ship Victoria bound for New York from the London Docks. They also discovered that he had written a letter just after the Victoria had put to sea which had been delivered to a married couple living in Old Ford with whom he had lodged for several weeks. They went to see the couple whose surname was Blyth.
They revealed that on the night of the murder, Muller had, unusually for him, not returned by eleven o’clock. They had waited up but decided to go to bed, and Muller had clearly let himself in and must have gone to bed in his usual quiet manner. When he came down to breakfast he was his normal cheerful, even charming, self. He was a model lodger described as well-behaved and inoffensive, and the Blyths had been sorry to see him go. On the day after the attack on Briggs Muller had stayed in all day and had gone out with the Blyths that evening. The next day, Monday, he had shown the Blyths a gold chain which he said he had bought cheaply from a man who worked on the docks.
The police were soon gathering a lot of useful information. Matthews and his wife were able to confirm that the crushed beaver hat did indeed belong to Muller. From a German couple called Repsch, living in Aldgate, they learned that Muller had arrived from Cologne about two years previously and they had helped him to get a job working for a tailor in Threadneedle Street. He had been a good worker but he had left on 2 July, stating his intention of emigrating to the USA where he thought he could make a fresh start.
The last time Repsch had seen Muller he had been in high spirits, showing off a watch and chain and a ring which he said he had bought for a good price from a man on the docks. He was also wearing a very fine hat which they had not seen him wearing before. He told them that his other one had been damaged and that he had obtained a replacement of a very superior sort at a bargain price.
Another witness to whom the police spoke was John Hoffa, a friend and workmate of Muller. When Muller had left his digs with Mr and Mrs Repsch he had lodged for a few nights with Hoffa in his room before making for the London Docks to board Victoria. With these and various other snippets of information, Tanner and Clarke now felt that there was a case against Muller. At the very least they needed to get hold of him so that he could ‘help them with their enquiries’, a wonderful euphemism.
Late on the Tuesday afternoon they went to the Chief Commissioner of Police who recognised the need to act quickly, especially in the light of public outrage about the atrocity and the necessity of bringing its perpetrator to justice. He authorised the two officers to sail to New York from Liverpool on the City of Manchester, a steam vessel and a much faster ship, in order to be there to arrest Muller when Victoria docked. The seriousness with which this case was being taken was indicated by the fact that Robert Death and Matthews accompanied Tanner and Clarke in order to confirm Muller’s identity when he was apprehended. The police even gave Mrs Matthews, who had four young children, financial compensation for the loss of her husband’s earnings while he was being a good citizen enjoying an expenses-paid passage to New York and back.
New York was buzzing with excitement about the murder, and its citizens were very taken up by the idea that Muller was crossing the Atlantic in order to evade justice, and that following hotfoot and actually overtaking the oblivious Muller was the epitome of cutting-edge technology, a steamship, carrying doughty British detectives determined to bring their quarry to justice. In fact so excited were some New Yorkers that a boatload of them sailed past Victoria as she was entering harbour shouting out phrases like, ‘How are you, Muller the murderer?’ Fortunately for the authorities, Muller apparently did not hear the commotion they made.
Muller must have been musing about the opportunities that the New World would provide for an enterprising young fellow like himself as his ship neared its destination. Victoria docked on 26 August. Blissfully unaware of the nemesis bearing down on him as he waited to disembark, no one could have been more surprised than he when a couple of New York uniformed policemen, and a pair of what were clearly English plain-clothes detectives, shouldered their way through the crowd and arrested him.
He was taken below and he and his belongings were searched. On his person were Briggs’s gold watch and silk hat which had been slightly altered by Muller. The police officers learned that Muller had made something of a name for himself on the voyage by his truculent and overbearing manner, and had come off second best in a fight with a fellow passenger who he called various rude names. Muller for his part received a corker of a black eye. Fights among the bored passengers on the long voyage were by no means uncommon, but Muller had also drawn attention to himself by betting that he could eat five pounds of German sausages at one sitting. He laid the bet in order to raise some money but failed in this culinary marathon and, having no cash, paid his debt with two shirts. It seems there had not been a dull moment while Muller was on board!
After the positive identification that was required, extradition proceedings were started, but they quickly ran up against an unexpected snag. There were many rich and influential people of German origin in and around New York and they took up Muller’s case, arguing that he was beyond the jurisdiction of the British courts and British police. One argument was that in the USA a person was presumed innocent until proven guilty, whereas Muller had been chased halfway across the world, intimidated by the police and the legal authorities, and was now being threatened with extradition as if the case against him was already decided.
It should be remembered that the general mood of people in the north of the USA was hostile to Britain, because many wealthy Britons supported the Confederate cause in the American Civil War. In fact Britain and the USA were almost in a state of undeclared war.
However, extradition formalities were eventually concluded on 3 September, and Tanner and Clarke embarked on Etna with Muller in handcuffs and with Matthews and Death, who had been revelling in the experience of a lifetime, something to tell their grandchildren about – all at public expense. Even Muller clearly enjoyed his voyage back to Blighty. Travelling in Etna was a much more luxurious experience than steerage in Victoria, and Muller did not stint on the best cuisine that the ship’s galley could provide. Neither did he waste his time in between meals. He got to grips with, and completed, a reading of Pickwick Papers and David Copperfield.
The ship docked at Liverpool on 16 September and, after staying in the city overnight, the party travelled down to London via Crewe and Rugby on the main line of the London & North Western Railway. It was Muller’s last journey by train. He was unprepared for the reception he received when he got to London, where ravening crowds jeered and booed him as he was taken first to Bow Street Magistrates’ Court where he was committed for trial and then to Holloway Prison.
The trial at the Central Criminal Court, better known as the Old Bailey, began on 27 October 1864. Muller looked small, even frail, and was neatly turned out. He spoke confidently when required and was punctilious with regard to the court’s etiquette. He certainly did not look like a man capable of launching a murderous attack on Briggs who may have been considerably older, but was also larger, strongly built
and very fit for his age. If Muller had had an accomplice, who was he? Was it Muller and the second, unknown man who Lee had seen at Bow, sharing the carriage with the defendant? He stubbornly stuck to the assertion of his total innocence and refused to implicate anyone else.
The frontage of Newgate Prison. Over the years up to 1868, this hated building housed tens of thousands of felons, eking out their miserable last days before going off to be executed at Tyburn, near the present-day Marble Arch. After 1783 they were executed instead outside Newgate in the street known as Old Bailey.
The witnesses for the prosecution were a motley and unimpressive lot whose reliability and integrity were effectively called into question by the counsel for the defence. The evidence was largely circumstantial but the jury found him guilty, taking just fifteen minutes in their deliberations. The German community in Britain now moved into action, protesting that there had been a miscarriage of justice, producing petitions and pleading for clemency.
However, the time of the execution was set for eight in the morning of 14 November. The location was outside the hated Newgate Prison. The executioner was William Calcraft. He had started his grisly work in 1829 and, despite a long career in the terminatory business, as it were, he was never much of a craftsman and he was unpopular not only with his victims, which was understandable, but also with hanging aficionados. This was because his estimation of how much drop to use for each hanging was poor, and many of those whose lives he terminated took longer than necessary to die. Even those who attended every possible hanging believed that the executioner had the responsibility to minimise the condemned prisoner’s sufferings.
Preparations being made for an execution outside Newgate Prison. Such events often took on the character of a popular carnival, especially if the condemned prisoner was especially hated for the nature of his crimes, or equally for perverse reasons, admired by the gallows crowd.
The crowds that gathered at hangings were known for being boisterous and badly behaved, but the impending death of Muller seems to have attracted the most bestial and wretched of London’s population, totalling something like 50,000, baying for blood and avid for entertainment. As The Times reported, the crowd went quiet only as Calcraft did his work and Muller’s life ebbed away, when there was an awed hush. For the rest of the time there was ‘loud laughing, oaths, fighting, obscene conduct and still more filthy language’.
In fact so horrible was the behaviour of the crowd at the execution of Muller that the event undoubtedly contributed greatly to the developing feeling that executions should be made private affairs behind prison walls. Indeed it was only three years later that the last public hanging in England took place, again outside Newgate Prison.
It has entered the annals of folklore that Muller was goaded into making a last-minute admission of guilt by the pastor attending him. Whether or not this is true, it is unlikely that any modern court would have passed such a verdict with the forensic and other investigative techniques now available.
Franz Muller.
The handcuffs used on Franz Muller when he was arrested. (Courtesy of Philip Hutchinson)
Who got the £300 reward money? It was Jonathan Matthews. It has to be said that his action gave the police enquiries the kick-start they needed, and that without him those enquiries might not have really got started at all. He was, however, one of those people who somehow exuded an air of shiftiness and mendacity. The police took an instant dislike to him and he cut a particularly poor figure in the witness box under relentless pressure from the defence counsel. Just after the Muller case Matthews was imprisoned for debt and much of the £300 went to pay off his creditors.
Cartoonist’s view of a ‘Muller Window’.
Muller had modified the hat he had stolen from Briggs into a kind of cut-down topper and these became fashionable among young men-about-town in London; ‘Muller’ hats enjoyed several years as fashion items.
On a positive note, some good can be said to have come of the murder of Thomas Briggs in that methods of communication between passengers and what would now be called ‘train crew’ began slowly to come into use across the railway system. These went under the generic name of ‘communication cord’ and when activated they notified the engine driver to stop the train as soon as it was safe to do so, but it was many years before such systems became mandatory.
At least one observer commented that a communication cord would not have saved the life of Briggs. The first blow to his head had probably rendered him unable to summon assistance. The London & South Western Railway put small openings, rather like portholes and known as ‘Muller windows’ in the dividing wall between compartments, and these at least offered some opportunity for frightened passengers to attract attention. Unfortunately these were often used by ‘peeping toms’ to observe the antics of courting couples.
In the words of the counsel for the prosecution, ‘The crime…is almost unparalleled in this country. It is a crime which strikes at the lives of millions. It is a crime which affects the life of every man who travels upon the great iron ways of this country… a crime of a character to arouse in the human breast an almost instinctive spirit of vengeance.’ The first British railway murder may have been a long time coming, but when it did it chilled and horrified the entire nation and, as we have seen, it had repercussions which crossed the Atlantic.
A Feckless Murderer
What does a murderer look like? Even a casual acquaintance with the history of crime makes it quite clear that there is no stereotype of the murderer in appearance or possibly in much else.
That aside, Percy Mapleton, who we shall refer to by his alias of ‘Lefroy’, definitely did not look like a killer. He was a generally rather nondescript man of feeble physique who possessed an aversion to hard work. He was a writer in a small way, with a few minor publications and plays to his name. His problem was one that he shared with many others. He had no regular income, and even when he got a small royalty he no sooner received the money than he spent it. Consequently he was more or less permanently broke. For most of the time he somehow just managed to keep his head above water, but 1881 was not his year and by June he was at his wits’ end. He pawned a few personal items and raised a few shillings. Desperate measures were needed if he was not to starve.
Knowing that he was neither strong nor of ferocious appearance, he had managed to get hold of a real working revolver which he intended to use for the purpose of robbery. If he threatened people with the gun, they would quickly surrender their valuables and there would be no need for messy violence in which he might come off second best, or so he reasoned. Where should he look for victims? He could not simply walk down the street brandishing the revolver, and he did not fancy lurking in some dark alley loitering with intent. He hit on the idea of a compartment on a moving passenger train.
On 27 June he headed for London Bridge station and bought a ticket for a train going to Brighton on the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway. He paced up and down the platform looking for a compartment with only one occupant. Preferably his intended victim would look as if he or she was worth robbing and would be likely to co-operate quickly when being threatened with a pistol. Lefroy found his victim.
An elderly gentleman sat alone in a compartment, intent on reading his newspaper and totally oblivious to the impending horrible fate that awaited him. His name was Frederick Gold. He lived in Brighton, and, although largely retired from business, he maintained an interest in a shop in London so he travelled up to town every Monday. He would go to the shop, examine the books, talk to the manager and receive a share of the takings in the form of banknotes. He either banked these straight away or put them in his wallet. He enjoyed Mondays. They kept him in touch with the world of work and he usually made a few social calls at the same time.
On this particular Monday, Gold arrived at London Bridge before ten in the morning. He was, as always, smartly turned out. In a pocket was a trusty watch which went everywhere with him. Engraved on the back was t
he name ‘Griffiths’ and the number 16261. On this occasion his share of the takings was £38 5s 6d, of which he banked all but the shillings and pence. He got back to London Bridge around two in the afternoon, found himself an empty compartment and sat back contentedly, drawing on a rather fine cigar and perusing the daily newspaper. He had exchanged a few pleasantries with the ticket collector as he headed for the platform and had nodded to another member of the station staff as he had settled down in his compartment.
Gold would have been less than pleased when another passenger joined him and sat down opposite. He did not acknowledge the newcomer but if he had he might well have noticed that he looked tense and excited. The train pulled out on time and rumbled over the viaducts of Bermondsey which gave a bird’s-eye view of the factories, warehouses and other industrial premises which were then such a feature of this part of south-east London. Soon there was plenty of greenery to be seen as the train traversed the leafy developing suburbs such as Forest Hill and Sydenham. South of Croydon it entered Merstham Tunnel.
It was in the blackness of this tunnel that Lefroy decided to launch an attack on his unsuspecting fellow passenger. A passenger in another compartment nearby heard four explosions as the train was passing through the tunnel. He wondered why they should be using fog signals or detonators on a clear day and inside a tunnel but he gave the matter little more thought, and, as the train emerged into the daylight, returned to the penny dreadful he was reading.
A line-side observer near Horley noticed two men apparently engaged in a struggle as the train passed but thought it pointless to report the matter at the local station. Eventually the train reached Preston Park in the northern suburbs of Brighton where Lefroy got off. He was a terrible sight. He was bleeding and had bloodstains on his clothes which were ripped and tattered. Even his collar was missing as he staggered, clearly in pain, down the platform. Passengers were nudging each other and indicating in his direction. He seemed to be in a daze when a ticket inspector stopped him and pointed out that he had a pocket watch dangling from his shoe. Rather feebly Lefroy explained that he had put it there for safe keeping.
Blood on the Tracks: A History of Railway Crime in Britain Page 6