The judge (Manisty) summed up strongly against the prisoners, but the jury did not so easily agree upon their verdict. They deliberated for three hours, and at last delivered a verdict of guilty, whereupon the judge commended them, and proceeded to pass the heaviest sentence in his power, short of death. He sought in vain, he said, "for any redeeming circumstance" that would justify him in reducing the sentence. Had Mr. or Miss Buckle succumbed to their wounds, he must have condemned the prisoners to death. It is clear, then, that Judge Manisty was only saved by mere accident from making as grievous a mistake as any into which a judge ever fell.
Brannagan and Murphy were removed from court protesting their innocence. They went into penal servitude with the same disclaimer.
Seven years dragged themselves along, and there seemed no near prospect of release, "life" convicts being detained as a rule for at least twenty years. But now, by some unseen working of Providence, a light was about to be let in on the case. It came to the knowledge of a young solicitor in Alnwick that a certain George Edgell had been "out" on the night of the Edlingham burglary, and that when he came in, a little before the general alarm, his wife had begged their fellow-lodgers to say nothing about his absence. Mr. Percy, Vicar of St. Paul's, Alnwick, through whose unstinting exertions justice at last was done, knew Edgell and questioned him, openly taxing him with complicity in the now nearly forgotten crime. Edgell at first stoutly denied the imputation, but seemed greatly agitated and upset. Added to this, it was stated authoritatively that Harkes, the police superintendent, who was now dead, admitted that he had been wrong, but that it was too late to rectify the mistake.
There was some strong counter influence at work, and Mr. Percy found presently that another man, named Charles Richardson, was constantly hanging about Edgell. The reason came out when at last Edgell made full confession of the burglary, and it was seen that this Richardson was his accomplice. They had been out on a poaching expedition, but had had little success. Then Richardson proposed to try the vicarage, and they forced their way in. Richardson used a chisel which he had picked up in an outhouse to prise open the windows and doors. All through he had been the leader and moving spirit. He it was who had first thought of the burglary, who had carried off the only bit of spoil worth having, Miss Buckle's gold watch, and this, by a curious Nemesis, afforded one of the strongest proofs of his guilt. A seal or trinket had been attached to the chain, and years afterwards, the jeweller to whom he had sold it came forward as a witness against him. The watch itself he had been unable to dispose of, he said, and he threw it into the Tyne. Richardson was a burly ruffian of great stature, and possessed of enormous strength; a quarrelsome desperado, who had already been tried for the murder of a policeman but acquitted for want of sufficient legal proof.