The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-10-14
THE ALTENBURG CASE
By GEORGE DIRE ELDR1DGE


At any rate, from that hour young i Calder seemed wholly to eisappear. and it was generally assumed that his | father had finally and absolutely dis owned him. With the acceptance of this theory came into existence the corollary that he must have been guilty of some most heinous offense, and gradually his name became a synonym for disobedience and want of filial duty. over which the head was to be shaken. with mkny a prognosti- cation of dire disaster.
 It undoubtedly had an effect upon the village judgment that about this ] time various circumstances led to the apparently we'll founded conclusion that Altenburg was possessed of considerable amount of money At once all the puzzles of the past van lshed. and his conduct became simply eccentric his brutal boorishness be- came bluff simplicity, and he was ac- corded that deference and considera- tion which thrifty New England all ways admits as the due of the man whc succeeds in getting together more than the average share of dollars
 
 unabated expectation that something would happen, which something with Wonted perversity continued tos refuse to do. Finally, Lanceboro settled down to wise acceptance of conditions as they existed and had existed for up- ward of five years. and now when everybody's back was turned so to speak. the long looked for had taken place. Mrs. Altenburg suddenly dis appeared. so quietly that, it was said. 1t was nearly a week before even the deaf old house servant knew it. Even then the sum and substance of knowl- edge was that she was no longer at the farm, and after six months no added pennyweight of knowledge had been gained. Yes, there was one add ed item. Almost at the moment it became established that she was no longer there. Altenburg had ordered a telephone put into the house The two facts were so absolutely without pos sible relationship that the majority of people shrewdly guessed that there must be the closest connection be- tween them. and finally Lanceboro divided itself into two camps, the one holding that Mrs. A1tenburg had gonel because the telephone came, and the other that the telephone came because Mrs. Altenburg was gone. The three professions refused to align themselves with either camp: the clergymen and physicians because they had patients in each, and the lawyers because they were waiting for a retainer before they could know where they belonged
 these things and an outline of them ran through his mind as he stood looking at the injured man, but his knowledge was too vague to carry with 1t very strong impressions, first because of the general mistiness of details. and second, because he was not to the manner born, and he had failed in the pursuit of his profession to build himself very intimately into the gossip of the town.
 Still man of far less keenness of insight would have caught instantly at the probability of connection be- tween this train of events and this evidence of unexplained violence which was before him. He knew that every act he might now do as a physician would ultimately have it's bearing up- on and probably be in some degree judged by the rather peculiar circum- stances that surrounded the life of this man and his family.
 To be Continued.)