. 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