Morning brought no letter nor yet telegram, so Amos went down to Merripit post office and sent a wire off to the Exeter lawyers axing for news of his brother; and he waited till an answer came down.  It ran like this: 

Mr. Gregory spent an hour with us yesterday and left at four o’clock to catch down train.

Cousins and Slark.

Well, that showed there was something wrong, and Amos felt he was up against it.  He never let the grass grow under his feet, and in twenty minutes he was riding to Ashburton, to catch a train for Exeter.  And afore he went, he directed Ernest to tell the police that his uncle was missing.  So hue and cry began from that morning, and the centre of search was Exeter, because from there came the last sure news of the man.  The lawyers made it clear that Joe was all right when he left them.  He’d handed over his money to be invested, and he’d put a codicil to his will, which, of course, the lawyers didn’t divulge to Amos.  Then he’d gone off very cheerful and hearty to buy a few things afore he catched his train.  But from that moment not a whisper of Joe Gregory could be heard.  He wasn’t a noticeable sort of chap, being small with an everyday old face and everyday grey whiskers; and nobody to the railway stations at Exeter or Totnes, where he would change for the Ashburton line, had seen him to their knowledge.  Yet in the course of the next few days, when his disappearance had got in the papers, three separate people testified as they’d met Joe that evening, and Ernest Gregory was able to prove they must have seen right.  The first was a tobacconist’s assistant at Exeter, who came forward and said a little, countrified man had bought two wooden pipes from him and a two-ounce packet of shag tobacco; and he said the little man wore a billycock hat with a jay’s blue wing feather in it.  And a barmaid at Newton Abbot testified that she’d served just such a man at the station after the train from Exeter had come in, about five-thirty, and afore it went out.  She minded the jay’s feather in his hat, because she’d asked the customer what it was, and he’d told her.  And lastly a porter up at Moretonhampstead said that a small chap answering to the description had got out of the Newton train to Moreton, which arrived at Moreton at fifteen minutes after six.  But he’d marked no jay’s feather in the man’s hat and only just noticed him, being a stranger, as went out of the station with half a dozen other travellers and gave up his ticket with the rest.  The tickets was checked, and sure enough, there were two from Exeter to Moreton; but while Ernest could prove the jay’s feather to be in his uncle’s hat, neither he nor anybody else could give any reason why Joe should have gone to Moreton instead of coming home.  He might have left the train for a drink at Newton, where there was time for him to do so; but he would have gone back to it no doubt in the ordinary course.  Asked if he came in alone for his drink, the barmaid said he did so and was prepared to swear that nobody spoke to him in the bar but herself.  And he’d gone again afore the down train left.  But at Totnes, where Joe was known by sight and where he ought to have changed for Ashburton, none had seen him.