ARTHUR.T Stories ----A Finder of Missing Heirs ----VIII---Page 45

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.