Selling watches and jewellery on credit to country customers, and collecting payments due from earlier sales.
He had a kerchief on a stick over his shoulder, containing his wares; gold and silver watches and a box of jewellery plus a quantity of cash.
[6] Around 3pm a John Robinson (contemporary accounts say "Roberson"), a butcher from Tittleshall, was passing and saw a trail of blood leading from the road to a ditch at the roadside.
While Robinson was inspecting the scene a gig containing Mrs Digby and a Miss Shepherd accompanied by two ponies carrying her sons, the sons of Rev Digby of St Mary's Church in Tittleshall, rode up, delaying their journey home from Dereham market.
[8] Robinson aided by the Roper brothers put the body in his cart and took it to the Griffin Inn public house (later known as the Golden Wyvern).
[9] Beha was buried in Our Lady of the Annunciation RC Church in King's Lynn which had been his place of worship, as a Roman Catholic with few options in the 1850s.
[11] A William Webster (also a butcher) driving a cart from Tittleshall to Wellingham shortly before 1pm on the day in question had spotted a man in the "plantation" behind the hedge where Beha's body was found.
In this small community the man was quickly identified as 21-year-old William Thompson, a farm labourer and wood-cutter who lived with his father.
A large amount of cash including two Lynn and Lincolnshire Bank £5 notes (unlikely to be currency held by a farm labourer) and several gold sovereigns were found together with a number of watch keys.
[14] The trial in April 1854 was under the county judge Sir James Parke and took place at Norfolk Assizes in Norwich.
Thompson's defence was that he had been walking along the road and went to investigate and found a third man over Beha's body when he was spotted by Webster.