The Prince and Princess of Wales left the Highlands in the beginning of September for Denmark, and the Queen’s holiday was restful and quiet. The only incident that troubled it seriously was due to the pressure which was put upon her to save the life of Franz Müller, the murderer of Mr. Briggs, chief clerk of Messrs. Robarts and Co., the great bankers in the City. Müller had murdered Mr. Briggs in a railway carriage on the night of the 9th July, between Fenchurch Street Station and Hackney Wick, and after robbing his victim threw his body out on the line. He exchanged Mr. Briggs’ watch-chain for another at the shop of a jeweller called Death in Cheapside, who identified his photograph. He left a hat in the carriage which was traced to him. He then fled to America. The crime was perpetrated with ruthless brutality, and for a time railway travelling was rendered an agony to nervous passengers. The detective police had displayed great skill in following up every clue that led them on the track of the criminal, and their exciting pursuit of him across the Atlantic, his arrest in New York, his return, his trial, at which counsel fought for his life with great courage and audacity, his conviction, his stoical denial of guilt, till at the last moment as the hangman drew the fatal bolt he uttered his confession, with the halter tightening round his throat--all contributed to rivet public attention on this most melodramatic of atrocities. A clever attempt at proving an _alibi_ had been made by his counsel, and there were some who believed in Müller’s innocence. The German colony in England took up his case most warmly, and it was whispered that the Queen herself was among those who feared that a judicial murder would be committed if Müller were hanged. For many days nothing else but his chances of being reprieved were discussed, and the King of Prussia, not to mention several other German Princes, sent autograph letters to the Queen pressing her to pardon the assassin. But her Majesty had watched the case carefully. She refused to interfere with the course of justice, and her prudence was justified by Müller’s strange confession, made just at the moment when he leapt into eternity.[223]