"Have accompanied our good friend to Green Dragon Hotel, Shrewsbury. At Birmingham he met a clever but needy aeronaut named Captain Sparhawk. This man has invented a flying machine which he has arranged to show at Great Shropshire Floral Fete here on Monday. Z. has promised to finance him and to ascend with him to test the machine's capacities. Two other seats were on sale in the town at twenty pounds each. I have bought them, and propose you and I ascend with them disguised as military men in undress uniform of engineers; otherwise fear, if the machine travels far, Z. may do a bolt to some other district. If you don't wire me, c/o Post Office, shall assume you will come.--C." "Certainly I will come," I said to myself grimly as I folded up the message and placed it in my pocket-book. "It would be a pity for you, Master Jose, to undertake any fresh adventures without my personal assistance. You might come to some harm before we had cleared up the mystery of the death of Colonel Napier, and that would be a pity, a great pity, indeed." And snatching up the travelling-bag which I always kept ready packed for such emergencies I dashed off to a costumier I knew who lived near, in Wellington Street. Then I made for Euston, and catching the night mail to the Midlands, contrived such a good use of my time, that, before church time, I found myself in Shrewsbury, scrambling up the hill that led from the main railway station to the far-famed Green Dragon Hotel, where I understood both Zouche and Casteno were. On the way down, however, I had effected certain changes in my appearance. A dark wig was on my head. A black moustache hid my mouth. My plain civilian clothes had given place at the costumier's to the uniform of a sergeant of royal engineers. I had done this to deceive the hunchback, and to satisfy Casteno I had brought no disguise for the Spaniard. I did not think he would need one after I had finished my first conversation with him! And as I turned into the courtyard of the hotel he came out and met me with outstretched hand. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. THE TWO BROTHERS. There was nothing in the way Casteno received me to suggest a man with a guilty secret. On the contrary, as I advanced through the doorway that led to the Green Dragon he stepped out boldly towards me the instant he recognised me beneath the disguise which he himself had suggested. "Welcome, my good friend," he said in a bluff and hearty fashion, stretching out his hand; "Welcome!"