CANADA'S GREATEST UNSOLVED MYSTERIES

CAN YOU CRACK THESE SPOOKY DISAPPEARANCES, PARANORMAL SIGHTINGS AND PUZZLING WHODUNITS?

- Luc Rinaldi AND Courtney Shea

The Missing Theatre Magnate

On December 1, 1919, Ambrose Small, a Toronto theatre owner, sold the bulk of his empire to a Montreal company for $1.7 million. The sale itself was not suspicious: given the growing popularity of moving pictures, Small had decided to divest himself before it was too late. The next day, he and his wife, Theresa, together deposited the money. On the street they parted ways, Small promising to be home by dinner. But he never arrived. Small had a reputation for carousing, and Theresa waited two weeks to report his absence.

Today, the potential killers sound like players in a murder-mystery game: wife Theresa, a fixture in Toronto society; Small’s money-grubbing sisters with no other source of income; the disgruntled secretary; and at least one mistress. There was even the possibility of a gangster hit, given Small’s substantial gambling habit.

But if suspects were plenty, the investigation was clumsy at best. “This was a different era of policing,” says Katie Daubs, author of The Missing Millionaire: The True Story of Ambrose Small and the City Obsessed with Finding Him. “At that time, police mostly patrolled the streets and successfully solved crimes by being present when they happened.”