A few days later the judge sentenced him to twenty years in State's
prison.
Then other people began to wake up. The Attorney-General guessed that
the Petersen property had all escheated to the State, the Swedish
Government sent a deputy to make inquiries, the Norwegian Government was
sure that he was a Norwegian, and the Danish that he was a Dane. No one
knows yet who is the real owner, and there are half a dozen heirs
squatting on every corner of it. Things are much worse than before
Browne tried to sell the ill-fated lot to Levitan, but a great many
people who were careless before are careful now.
It soon developed, however, that lawyer Browne's industry and ingenuity
had not been confined to the exploitation of the estate of Ebbe
Petersen. Before the trial was well under way the City Chamberlain of
New York notified the District Attorney that a peculiar incident had
occurred at his office, in which not only the defendant figured, but
William R. Hubert, his familiar, as well. In the year 1904 a judgment
had been entered in the Supreme Court, which adjudged that a certain
George Wilson was entitled to a one-sixth interest in the estate of
Jane Elizabeth Barker, recently deceased.
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