Chapter 12

Men are not only "presumed to be innocent" in the eyes of the law, but are found to be so, as a matter of daily experience, so far as honesty in the ordinary affairs of life is concerned, and the fact that we rely so implicitly upon the truthfulness and integrity of our fellows is the principal reason why violations of this imperative social law should be severely dealt with. If it were possible adequately to determine or deal with any such issue mere lying should be made a crime.

It is matter of constant wonder that shrewd business men will put through all sorts of deals, when thousands of dollars are at stake, relying entirely upon the word of some single person, whom they do not in fact know. John Smith is looking for a house. He finds one he likes with an old lady, who says her name is Sarah Jones, living in it, and offers her forty thousand dollars for her real estate. She accepts. His lawyer searches the title and finds that Sarah Jones is the owner of record. The old lady is invited to the lawyer's office, executes a warranty deed, and goes off with the forty thousand dollars. Now in a great number of instances no one really knows whether the aged dame is Sarah Jones or not; and she perhaps may be, and sometimes is, only the caretaker's second cousin, who is looking after the house in the latter's absence.

There are thousands of acres of land and hundreds of millions of money waiting at compound interest to be claimed by unknown heirs or next of kin. Even if the real ones cannot be found one would think that this defect could be easily supplied by some properly ingenious person.

"My Uncle Bill went to sea in '45 and was never heard from again. Will you find out if he left any money?" wrote a client to the author. Careful search failed to reveal any money. But if the money had been found _first_ how easy it would have been to turn up a nephew! Yet the industry of producing properly authenticated nephews, heirs, legatees, next of kin and claimants of all sorts has never been adequately developed. There are plenty of "agents" who for a moderate fee will inform you whether or not there is a fortune waiting for you, but there is no agency within the writer's knowledge which will supply an heir for every fortune. From a business point of view the idea seems to have possibilities.

Some few years after the Civil War a Swede named Ebbe Petersen emigrated to this country to better his condition. Fortune smiled upon him and he amassed a modest bank account, which, with considerable foresight, he invested in a large tract of unimproved land in the region known as "The Bronx," New York City.

In the summer of 1888 Petersen determined to take a vacation and revisit Sweden, and accordingly deeded all his real estate to his wife. Just before starting he decided to take his wife and only child, a little girl of ten or twelve, with him. Accordingly they set sail from Hoboken Saturday, August 11, upon the steamer _Geiser_, of the Thingvalla Line, bound for Copenhagen. At four o'clock Tuesday morning, at a point thirty miles south of Sable Island and two hundred miles out of Halifax, the _Geiser_, in the midst of a thick fog, crashed suddenly into a sister ship, the _Thingvalla_, of the same line, and sank. The _Thingvalla_ was herself badly crippled, but, after picking up thirty-one survivors, managed to limp into Halifax, from which port the rescued were brought to New York. Only fourteen of the _Geiser's_ passengers had been saved and the Petersens were not among them. They were never heard of again, and no relatives came forward to claim their property, which, happening to be in the direct line of the city's development, was in course of time mapped out into streets and house lots and became exceedingly valuable. Gradually houses were built upon it, various people bought it for investment, and it took on the look of other semi-developed suburban property.

In the month of December, 1905, over seventeen years after the sinking of the _Geiser_, a lawyer named H. Huffman Browne, offered to sell "at a bargain" to a young architect named Benjamin Levitan two house lots adjacent to the southwest corner of One Hundred and Seventy-fourth Street and Monroe Avenue, New York City. It so happened that Browne had, not long before, induced Levitan to go into another real-estate deal, in which the architect's suspicions had been aroused by finding that the property alleged by the lawyer to be "improved" was, in fact, unbuilt upon. He had lost no money in the original transaction, but he determined that no such mistake should occur a second time, and he accordingly visited the property, and also had a search made of the title, which revealed the fact that Browne was not the record owner, as he had stated, but that, on the contrary, the land stood in the name of "William R. Hubert."

It should be borne in mind that both the parties to this proposed transaction were men well known in their own professions. Browne, particularly, was a real-estate lawyer of some distinction, and an editor of what were known as the old "New York Civil Procedure Reports." He was a middle-aged man, careful in his dress, particular in his speech, modest and quiet in his demeanor, by reputation a gentleman and a scholar, and had practised at the New York bar some twenty-five years.

But Levitan, who had seen many wolves in sheep's clothing, and had something of the Sherlock Holmes in his composition, determined to seek the advice of the District Attorney, and having done so, received instructions to go ahead and consummate the purchase of the property. He, therefore, informed Browne that he had learned that the latter was not the owner of record, to which Browne replied that that was true, but that the property really did belong to him in fact, being recorded in Hubert's name merely as a matter of convenience (because Hubert was unmarried), and that, moreover, he, Browne, had an unrecorded deed from Hubert to himself, which he would produce, or would introduce Hubert to Levitan and let him execute a deed direct. Levitan assented to the latter proposition, and the fourteenth of December, 1905, was fixed as the date for the delivery of the deeds and the payment for the property.

At two o'clock in the afternoon of that day Browne appeared at Levitan's office (where a detective was already in attendance) and stated that he had been unable to procure Mr. Hubert's personal presence, but had received from him deeds, duly executed, to the property. These he offered to Levitan. At this moment the detective stepped forward, took possession of the papers, and invited the lawyer to accompany him to the District Attorney's office. To this Browne offered no opposition, and the party adjourned to the Criminal Courts Building, where Mr. John W. Hart, an Assistant District Attorney, accused him of having obtained money from Levitan by means of false pretences as to the ownership of the property, and requested from him an explanation. Browne replied without hesitation that he could not understand why this charge should be made against him; that he had, in fact, received the deeds from Mr. Hubert only a short time before he had delivered them to Levitan; that Mr. Hubert was in New York; that he was the owner of the property, and that no fraud of any sort had been attempted or intended.

Mr. Hart now examined the supposed deeds and found that the signatures to them, as well as the signatures to a certain affidavit of title, which set forth that William R. Hubert was a person of substance, had all been executed before a notary, Ella F. Braman, on that very day. He therefore sent at once for Mrs. Braman who, upon her arrival, immediately and without hesitation, positively identified the defendant, H. Huffman Browne, as the person who had executed the papers before her an hour or so before. The case on its face seemed clear enough. Browne had apparently deliberately forged William R. Hubert's name, and it did not even seem necessary that Mr. Hubert should be summoned as a witness, since the property was recorded in his name, and Browne himself had stated that Hubert was then actually in New York.

But Browne indignantly protested his innocence. It was clear, he insisted, that Mrs. Braman was mistaken, for why, in the name of common-sense, should he, a lawyer of standing, desire to forge Hubert's name, particularly when he himself held an unrecorded deed of the same property, and could have executed a good conveyance to Levitan had the latter so desired. Such a performance would have been utterly without an object. But the lawyer was nervous, and his description of Hubert as "a wealthy mine owner from the West, who owned a great deal of property in New York, and had an office in the Flatiron Building," did not ring convincingly in Mr. Hart's ears. The Assistant District Attorney called up the janitor of the building in question on the telephone. But no such person had an office there. Browne, much flustered, said the janitor was either a fool or a liar. He had been at Hubert's office that very morning. He offered to go and find him in twenty minutes. But Mr. Hart thought that the lawyer had better make his explanation before a magistrate, and caused his arrest and commitment on a charge of forgery. Little did he suspect what an ingenious fraud was about to be unearthed.

The days went by and Browne stayed in the Tombs, unable to raise the heavy bail demanded, but no Hubert appeared. Meantime the writer, to whom the case had been sent for trial, ordered a complete search of the title to the property, and in a week or so became possessed, to his amazement, of a most extraordinary and complicated collection of facts.

He discovered that the lot of land offered by Browne to Levitan, and standing in Hubert's name, was originally part of the property owned by Ebbe Petersen, the unfortunate Swede who, with his family, had perished in the _Geiser_ off Cape Sable in 1888.

The title search showed that practically all of the Petersen property had been conveyed by Mary A. Petersen to a person named Ignatius F. X. O'Rourke, by a deed, which purported to have been executed on June 27, 1888, about two weeks before the Petersens sailed for Copenhagen, and which was signed with Mrs. Petersen's mark, but that this deed had not been recorded until July 3, 1899, _eleven years_ after the loss of the _Geiser_.

The writer busied himself with finding some one who had known Mrs. Petersen, and by an odd coincidence discovered a woman living in the Bronx who had been an intimate friend and playmate of the little Petersen girl. This witness, who was but a child when the incident had occurred, clearly recalled the fact that Ebbe Petersen had not decided to take his wife and daughter with him on the voyage until a few days before they sailed. They had then invited her, the witness--now a Mrs. Cantwell--to go with them, but her mother had declined to allow her to do so. Mrs. Petersen, moreover, according to Mrs. Cantwell, was a woman of education, who wrote a particularly fine hand. Other papers were discovered executed at about the same time, signed by Mrs. Petersen with her full name. It seemed inconceivable that she should have signed any deed, much less one of so much importance, with her _mark_, and, moreover, that she should have executed any such deed at all when her husband was on the spot to convey his own property.

But the strangest fact of all was that the attesting witness to this extraordinary instrument was H. Huffman Browne! It also appeared to have been recorded _at his instance_ eleven years after its execution.

In the meantime, however, that is to say, between the sinking of the _Geiser_ in '88 and the recording of Mary Petersen's supposed deed in '99, another _equally mysterious_ deed to the same property had been filed. This document, executed and recorded in 1896, purported to convey part of the Petersen property to a man named John J. Keilly, and was signed by a person calling himself Charles A. Clark. By a later deed, executed and signed a few days later, John J. Keilly appeared to have conveyed the same property to Ignatius F. X. O'Rourke, the very person to whom Mrs. Petersen had apparently executed her deed in 1888. And H. Huffman Browne was the attesting witness to both these deeds!

A glance at the following diagram will serve to clear up any confusion which may exist in the mind of the reader:

[Sidenote: (Not Recorded until 1899)]

1888 MARY A. PETERSEN 1896 CHARLES A. CLARK by her (X) deed conveys _same property_ conveys to to I.F.X. O'ROURKE JOHN J. KEILLY. | | 1896 JOHN J. KEILLY | conveys to | I.F.X. O'ROURKE |_________________________|

O'ROURKE thus holds land through two sources.

Browne was the witness to both these parallel transactions! Of course it was simple enough to see what had occurred. In 1896 a mysterious man, named Clark, without vestige of right or title, so far as the records showed, had conveyed Ebbe Petersen's property to a man named Keilly, equally unsubstantial, who had passed it over to one O'Rourke. Then Browne had suddenly recorded Mrs. Petersen's deed giving O'Rourke the very same property. Thus this O'Rourke, whoever he may have been, held all the Petersen property by two chains of title, one through Clark and Keilly, and the other through Mrs. Petersen. Then he had gone ahead and deeded it all away to various persons, through one of whom William R. Hubert had secured his title. But every deed on record which purported to pass any fraction of the Petersen property was witnessed by H. Huffman Browne! And Browne was the attesting witness to the deed under which Hubert purported to hold. Thus the chain of title, at the end of which Levitan found himself, ran back to Mary Petersen, with H. Huffman Browne peering behind the arras of every signature.

MARY PETERSEN CLARK BROWNE, to to attesting witness. O'ROURKE KEILLY | | | KEILLY BROWNE, | to attesting witness. | O'ROURKE | | |____________________|

O'ROURKE BROWNE, to attesting witness. WILLIAM P. COLLITON

WILLIAM P. COLLITON to BROWNE, JOHN GARRETSON attesting witness.

JOHN GARRETSON to BROWNE, HERMAN BOLTE attesting witness.

HERMAN BOLTE to BROWNE, BENJ. FREEMAN attesting witness.

BENJ. FREEMAN to BROWNE, WILLIAM R. HUBERT attesting witness.

The Assistant District Attorney rubbed his forehead and wondered who in thunder all these people were. Who, for example, to begin at the beginning, was Charles A. Clark, and why should he be deeding away Ebbe Petersen's property? And who were Keilly and O'Rourke, and all the rest--Colliton, Garretson, Bolte and Freeman? And who, for that matter, was Hubert?

A score of detectives were sent out to hunt up these elusive persons, but, although the directories of twenty years were searched, no Charles A. Clark, John J. Keilly or I. F. X. O'Rourke could be discovered. Nor could any one named Colliton, Freeman or Hubert be found. The only persons who did appear to exist were Garretson and Bolte.

Quite by chance the Assistant District Attorney located the former of these, who proved to be one of Browne's clients, and who stated that he had taken title to the property at the lawyer's request and as a favor to him, did not remember from whom he had received it, had paid nothing for it, received nothing for it, and had finally deeded it to Herman Bolte at the direction of Browne. Herman Bolte, an ex-judge of the Municipal Court, who had been removed for misconduct in office, admitted grumblingly that, while at, one time he had considered purchasing the property in question, he had never actually done so, that the deed from Garretson to himself had been recorded without his knowledge or his authority, that he had paid nothing for the property and had received nothing for it, and had, at the instruction of Browne, conveyed it to Benjamin Freeman. Garretson apparently had never seen Bolte, and Bolte had never seen Freeman, while William R. Hubert, the person to whom the record showed Freeman had transferred the property, remained an invisible figure, impossible to reduce to tangibility.

Just what Browne had attempted to do--had done--was obvious. In some way, being a real-estate lawyer, he had stumbled upon the fact that this valuable tract of land lay unclaimed. Accordingly, he had set about the easiest way to reduce it to possession. To make assurance doubly sure he had forged two chains of title, one through an assumed heir and the other through the owner herself. Then he had juggled the title through a dozen or so grantees, and stood ready to dispose of the property to the highest bidder.

There he stayed in the Tombs, demanding a trial and protesting his innocence, and asserting that if the District Attorney would only look long enough he would find William R. Hubert. But an interesting question of law had cropped up to delay matters.

Of course, if there was anybody by the name of Hubert who actually owned the property, and Browne had signed his name, conveying the same, to a deed to Levitan, Browne was guilty of forgery in the first degree. But the evidence in the case pointed toward the conclusion that Browne himself _was_ Hubert. If this was so, how could Browne be said to have forged the name of Hubert, when he had a perfect legal right to take the property under any name he chose to assume? This was incontestable. If your name be Richard Roe you may purchase land and receive title thereto under the name of John Doe, and convey it under that name without violating the law. This as a general proposition is true so long as the taking of a fictitious name is for an honest purpose and not tainted with fraud. The Assistant District Attorney felt that the very strength of his case created, as it were, a sort of "legal weakness," for the more evidence he should put in against Browne, the clearer it would become that Hubert was merely Browne himself, and this would necessitate additional proof that Browne had taken the property in the name of Hubert for purposes of fraud, which could only be established by going into the whole history of the property. Of course, if Browne were so foolish as to put in the defence that Hubert really existed, the case would be plain sailing. If, however, Browne was as astute as the District Attorney believed him to be, he might boldly admit that there was no Hubert except himself, and that in taking title to the property and disposing thereof under that name, he was committing no violation of law for which he could be prosecuted.

The case was moved for trial on the twelfth of March, 1906, before Judge Warren W. Foster, in Part Three of the Court of General Sessions in New York. The defendant was arraigned at the bar without counsel, owing to the absence of his lawyer through sickness, and Mr. Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler, the later Lieutenant-Governor of the State, was assigned to defend him. At this juncture Browne arose and addressed the Court. In the most deferential and conciliatory manner he urged that he was entitled to an adjournment until such time as he could produce William R. Hubert as a witness; stating that, although the latter had been in town on December 14th, and had personally given him the deeds in question, which he had handed to Levitan, Hubert's interests in the West had immediately called him from the city, and that he was then in Goldfields, Nevada; that since he had been in the Tombs he, Browne, had been in correspondence with a gentleman by the name of Alfred Skeels, of the Teller House, Central City, Colorado, from whom he had received a letter within the week to the effect that Hubert had arranged to start immediately for New York, for the purpose of testifying as a witness for the defence. The prosecutor thereupon demanded the production of this letter from the alleged Skeels, and Browne was compelled to state that he had immediately destroyed it on its receipt. The prosecutor then argued that under those circumstances, and in view of the fact that the People's evidence showed conclusively that no such person as Hubert existed, there was no reason why the trial should not proceed then and there. The Court thereupon ruled that the case should go on.

A jury was procured after some difficulty, and the evidence of Mr. Levitan received, showing that Browne had represented Hubert to be a man of substance, and had produced an affidavit, purported to be sworn to by Hubert, to the same effect, with deeds alleged to have been signed by him. Mrs. Braman then swore that upon the same day Browne had himself acknowledged these very deeds and had sworn to the affidavit before her as a notary, under the name of William R. Hubert.

Taken with the fact that Browne had in open court stated that Hubert was a living man, this made out a _prima facie_ case. But, of course, the District Attorney was unable to determine whether or not Browne would take the stand in his own behalf, or what his defence would be, and, in order to make assurance doubly sure, offered in evidence all the deeds to the property in question, thereby establishing the fact that it was originally part of the Petersen estate, and disclosing the means whereby it had eventually been recorded in the name of Hubert.

The prosecution then rested its case, and the burden shifted to the defence to explain how all these deeds, attested by Browne, came to be executed and recorded. It was indeed a difficult, if not impossible, task which the accused lawyer undertook when he went upon the stand. He again positively and vehemently denied that he had signed the name of Hubert to the deed which he had offered to Levitan, and persisted in the contention that Hubert was a real man, who sooner or later would turn up. He admitted knowing the Petersen family in a casual way, and said he had done some business for them, but stated that he had not heard of their tragic death until some years after the sinking of the _Geiser_. He had then ascertained that no one had appeared to lay claim to Mrs. Petersen's estate, and he had accordingly taken it upon himself to adveritse for heirs. In due course Charles A. Clark had appeared and had deeded the property to Keilly, who in turn had conveyed it to O'Rourke. Just who this mysterious O'Rourke was he could not explain, nor could he account in any satisfactory manner for the recording in 1899 of the deed signed with Mary Petersen's mark. He said that it had "turned up" in O'Rourke's hands after O'Rourke had become possessed of the property through the action of the heirs, and that he had no recollection of ever having seen it before or having witnessed it. In the latter transactions, by which the property had been split up, he claimed to have acted only as attorney for the different grantors. He was unable to give the address or business of O'Rourke, Clark, Keilly or Freeman, and admitted that he had never seen any of them save at his own office. He was equally vague as to Hubert, whose New York residence he gave as 111 Fifth Avenue. No such person, however, had ever been known at that address.