nd 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