What became of him? Was he lured down some byway and murdered for his watch and chain and whatever he had in his pocket, and his body disposed of in the mysterious way that murdered people are got rid of even to this day? Or was it a case of dual identity? Did he, forgetting who he was, think himself some one else, and live and work as some one else in some other part of England until he died in the natural course of events?
That may happen, and does sometimes account for mysterious disappearances.
A man well-known in the theatrical profession some years ago—the touring manager of a popular London lessee—once disappeared mysteriously. His accounts were in order. He had paid the company and remitted the balance to his chief. And having done so he disappeared. The company waited for him at a railway station, and waited in vain. All sorts of conjectures were indulged in, and his friends and relatives were untiring in their efforts to ascertain his fate.
Late one night an actor going home to his residence on the south side of the water turned up a side street, attracted by a little crowd in it. A gang of roughs were around two men who were fighting.
The actor stopped for a moment to "study character," and then went on up the side street, knowing that at the top of it he would get into the main thoroughfare again.
Near the top he came to a public-house. Outside the house a poorly-clad street musician was playing a cornet—none too well—and collecting coppers from the people in the bar. The actor looked at the comet-player for a moment, and then, with a cry of astonishment, touched him on the shoulder and called him by name.
It was the touring manager whose mysterious disappearance had been the talk of the profession.
The poor fellow was absolutely ignorant of his own identity. It was some time afterwards before old familiar surroundings and the voices and faces of old friends revived in his brain the memory of the past and gave him back his lost identity.
It happens sometimes that the mystery of a disappearance is penetrated only to increase the anguish of the unhappy relatives. A young man of good family, becoming heavily involved through gambling transactions, left his home. The efforts of his father to ascertain his whereabouts were fruitless.
Many years afterwards the young man's father, Mr. ————, was at the house of a friend who collected souvenirs of famous crimes. In his collection was an album containing the portraits of murderers and their victims.