What if the suspicions were a mere collection of crochets?

From Murder in the First-Class Carriage: The First Victorian Railway Killing by Kate Colquhoun. Page 113.

On the whole issue of public debate, knowledge, evidence, logic, etc.

Letters expressing misgivings continued to be addressed to the Police Commissioner. Correspondents found Matthews’ story suspicious and thought it possible that he was motivated by the three-hundred-pound reward. One pointed out that in our opinion it is very difficult to get fitted with a hat even by a professional hatter. How likely, he wondered, was it that a hat would be purchased for another on the off-chance that it might fit?

Questions were also asked about the wisdom of showing John Death a single photograph of the suspect rather than several from which he might have taken his pick. One letter expressed disbelief at the silversmith’s ability to identify so unhesitatingly one casual customer out of the hundreds he must serve, particularly as he had sworn under oath that the man who came to his shop on 11 July had been careful to keep to the shadowy parts of the room. Why, wrote others, had Matthews been shown the crumpled hat at Scotland Yard rather than asked to identify it from among a variety of different hats? Had he been asked to try on the hat to demonstrate that it was too large for him? Had anyone ever heard of a man asking a friend to buy him a hat and expecting it to fit? Was there a man who could identify the hat of his most intimate friend without being shown it first? What had become of Matthews’ hat? Had the police behaved properly in expecting perfect honesty from this bluff cab driver?

Several of the Police Commissioner’s correspondents wondered whether Thomas Lee’s evidence was being taken seriously enough. Letters began to appear in the press, including one printed in the Daily Telegraph. Signed from ‘Do Justice’ and dated 25 July, it backed up Lee’s story by claiming that an acquaintance shook hands with Mr Briggs while he was sitting in a first-class carriage at Bow Station, and that there were then in the same carriage ‘two ill-looking men’.

Concern grew. What if all the circumstantial evidence was only that? What if the suspicions were a mere collection of crochets? Similar uncertainties kept the readers of those excitingly mysterious sensation novels on the edges of their seats and their authors often pointed out that the species of argument which builds up any hypothesis out of a series of probabilities may, after all, lead very often to false conclusions. If this murder turned out to be a ghastly enigma, if it threatened to remain unsolved, then life was imitating art.

Though there are many circumstances of grave suspicion against Müller, wrote ‘A Barrister’ from Lincoln’s Inn to the editor of the Telegraph, there are also facts strongly tending to induce a supposition of his innocence. Matthews’ evidence, for a start, was of so “extraordinary a nature as to demand the strictest scrutiny. Was it possible that he had delayed making his statement in order to gain the money without sacrificing an innocent friend? So many aspects of this story, posited the ‘Barrister’, constituted prima facie evidence of Müller’s innocence. He asked who but a madman, knowing himself to have but just been guilty of an atrocious murder and not being in immediate want of money (as is proved by his exchanging not selling the chain) would have deliberately gone out of his way to connect himself with the crime?

In an editorial on Monday 25 July, the Daily Telegraph agreed. We know of certain events affecting Müller which occurred at the time of the murder of Mr Briggs, but we do not know directly that the one man was ever in the presence of the other; therefore, in order to convict Müller we have to invent a story which shall not only accord with all the known facts but which shall accord with them much more probably than any other story that could possibly be suggested. The paper urged the country to regain perspective. Fact, rumour and surmise, it believed, had been mingled so confusedly in the various accounts presented to the public that it was difficult to know what constituted tangible evidence against the German.

The newspaper reminded its readers of the notorious frailty of circumstantial ‘proofs’, that Müller had worked for a reputable company, that the Blyths were a respectable married couple whose opinion of Müller’s good character should not be ignored, that he gave more than a week’s notice, and that some evidence suggested that he had injured his foot on Thursday 7 July and was wearing a slipper on the night of the murder. It questioned whether it was possible for a murderer to appear in good cheer at breakfast the next morning, wearing the same suit of clothes he had worn the night before without any signs of their being cleaned in a hurry. It seemed to the paper most unlikely that a guilty man would so conspicuously boast about his new chain and hat or that he would broadcast so freely the name of his escape vessel.

If the evidence stopped here, the editor continued, we should have no hesitation in saying not merely that it is insufficient to convict Müller but that it renders his guilt extremely improbable. As for Matthews’ testimony about the hat, it remained to be seen whether it would stand up under cross-examination. For now, the paper considered that its truth had not been established. We are particularly anxious to impress this observation on the public mind. He should be judged without prejudice … No wise and cautious man will dare to say at present that Müller cannot be innocent.