The Disappearance of Ambrose Small

On a snowy winter day in 1919, millionaire Ambrose Small vanished. His disappearance is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in Canadian history.

Born in 1866, Small began working in Toronto stage theatres at the age of 18. He was also a bookie, taking illegal bets on horse races. He eventually bought a playhouse and built an empire of 34 theatres, many of them outside Ontario.

In 1902, he married Theresa Kormann, his stepmother's younger sister. The two had little in common. Theresa was a devout Roman Catholic, while Small was a womanizer who had affairs with chorus girls. They had no children.

Small was widely hated, accused of underhanded business practices and fixing horse races. Journalist Hector Charlesworth, who knew him, once said, "If I heard once, I heard a score of times the ominous words: 'Somebody will get Amby some day.'"

That day was 2 December 1919. The day before, Small had signed a business deal to sell his theatres for $1.7 million dollars, spurred by the decline of live theatre and the rise of cinemas. Small, Theresa and their attorney, E.W.M. Flock, met with the buyers and received a cheque, which was deposited in the bank the next day.

On 2 December, Small went for lunch with his wife and lawyer, visiting an orphanage with Theresa afterward to make a donation. Theresa returned home. Small went to his office to meet with Flock and clear up some details of the deal. He invited the lawyer to dinner, but Flock had a train to catch. Flock left Small's office around 5:30 that evening. Then Ambrose Small disappeared. It was two weeks before police learned he had vanished.

There were two main suspects: Theresa and James "Jack" Doughty, Small's personal secretary. Fearing a scandal, Theresa did not report her husband missing. "I believe my Amby is in the hands of a designing woman, somewhere, and will come back," she claimed.

Small's sisters believed she had him killed. When police were not convinced, the sisters hired a muckraking private detective, who accused everyone from the police to the Catholic Church of being involved in a conspiracy. Theresa was never charged. She inherited Small's estate, most of which she donated to Catholic charities upon her death.

Doughty had often complained about his small salary. Allegedly, he had even spoken of plotting to murder Small. Doughty went missing shortly after Small disappeared, along with $100,000 in Victory Bonds from Small's safety deposit box. Police caught Doughty in Oregon. He was convicted of theft, but they never could prove he had killed his boss.

Small's body was never found, though bones uncovered in 1937 were initially suspected to be his. Ambrose Small's disappearance was never solved.