I think this was an English mystery or part of one, maybe from the Golden Age of mysteries (Christie, Allingham, Sayers?) where a City man leaves his home to go to work, is seen by a tradesman at one end of a block, but never reaches the other end and is never seen again. Much publicity about his disappearance. Years later, someone — perhaps a young relative — finds him as part owner of a small circus in France, with his partner the neighbor woman with exotic snakes whose high brick wall in the middle of the block he vaulted over to live with her.