Mysteries of the missing

by Edward H. Smith

Thus the Small case presents very different factors from those governing the ordinary disappearance case. It is full of the elements which make for mystery and bafflement, and it may be set down at once as an enigma of the most arresting and irritating type, upon whose darknesses not the slightest light has ever been shed.

So far as can be learned, Small had no enemies and felt no apprehensions. He was totally immersed for some months before his disappearance in the negotiations for the sale of his interests to the Trans-Canada Company, and apparently he devoted all his energies to this project. He had anticipated a favorable conclusion for some time and looked upon the signing of the agreements and writing of the check on December 2 as nothing more than a formality.

Late in the morning of the day in question, Small met his attorney and the representatives of the Trans-Canada Company in his offices, and the formalities were concluded. Some time after noon he deposited the check in the Dominion Bank and then took Mrs. Small to luncheon. Afterward he visited a Catholic children’s institution with her and left her at about three o’clock to return to his desk in the Grand Theater, where he had sat for many years, spinning his plans and piling up his fortune.

There seems to be not the slightest question that Small went directly to his office and spent the remainder of the afternoon there. Not only his secretary, John Doughty, who had been Small’s confidential man for nineteen years, and later played a dramatic and mysterious part in the disappearance drama, but several other employees of the Grand Theater saw their retiring master at his usual post that afternoon. Small not only talked with these workers, but he called business associates on the telephone and made at least two appointments for the following day. He also was in conference with his solicitor as late as five o’clock.

According to Doughty, his employer left the Grand Theater at about five thirty o’clock and this time of departure coincided perfectly with what is known of Small’s engagements. He had promised his wife to be at home for dinner at six thirty o’clock.

There is also confirmation at this point. For years Small had been in the habit of dropping into Lamb’s Hotel, next door to his theater, before going home in the evening. He was intimately acquainted there, often met his friends in the hotel lobby or bar, and generally chatted a few minutes before leaving for his residence. The proprietor of the hotel came forward after Small’s disappearance and recalled that he had seen the theater man in his hotel a little after five thirty o’clock. He was also under the impression that Small had stayed for some time, but he could not be sure.

~~ AMBROSE J. SMALL ~~

The next and final point of time that can be fixed is seven fifteen o’clock. At that time Small approached the newsboy in Adelaide Street, who knew the magnate well, and bought his usual evening papers. The boy believed that Small had come from the theater, but was not sure he had not stepped out of the hotel adjoining. Small said nothing but the usual things, seemed in no way different from his ordinary mood, and tarried only long enough to glance at the headlines under the arc lamps.

Probably there is something significant about the fact that Small did not leave the vicinity of his office until seven fifteen o’clock, when he was due at home by half past six. What happened to him after he had left his theater in plenty of time to keep the appointment with his wife? That something turned up to change his plan is obvious. Whether he merely encountered some one and talked longer than he realized, or whether something arrested him that had a definite bearing on his disappearance is not to be said; but the latter seems to be the reasonable assumption. Small was not the kind of man lightly to neglect his agreements, particularly those of a domestic kind.