“What!” Both boys were excited, and Tom added eagerly, “Who is he?”
“An actor at the Shopton summer playhouse.”
158 THE VISITOR FROM PLANET X
“How did you find out?” Tom asked.
“I had a hunch,” Ames went on. “If the impersonator wasn’t a plant employee at Enterprises, then he had to be a person with a trained voice. That gave me the idea of checking on all actors and station announcers here in the vicinity. It paid off right away. The guy’s name is Brent Nolan.”
“Have you questioned him yet?” Tom asked.
“I’m about to,” Ames replied. “Radnor just brought him in.”
The security chief led the way into an adjoining office. A slender, good-looking young man with blond wavy hair was seated on a chair with Phil Radnor on one side of him and a Shopton police officer on the other. The actor was visibly nervous and perspiring.
“This is Tom Swift Jr.,” Ames told him. “Brent Nolan.”
Nolan nodded. “Yes, I’ve seen your picture in the papers many times.” The actor tried to force a smile but his face muscles twitched. “I-I seem to have pulled a pretty dumb stunt by faking that phone call from your father. I’m sorry.”
“What was the reason?” Tom asked.
Nolan fingered his wavy blond hair uneasily and swallowed hard. “A man named Professor Runkle paid me to do it.”
“Professor Runkle?” Tom frowned. The name seemed vaguely familiar.
EARTHQUAKE ISLAND 159
“He spoke with a foreign accent. Said he was doing research at Grandyke University,” Nolan explained. “He told me you might be expecting a rare biological specimen from the East Indies. He said both of you were eager to get hold of it for research purposes, but he was afraid that you had outbid him.