However, if he asked you straight out, you would guard the secret very jealously.
So he hired me to find out.”
“Didn’t it occur to you he might be an espionage agent?” Ames asked coldly.
Nolan seemed shocked. “Believe me, I had no such idea!” he averred.
“Runkle seemed pleasant. He said it all was merely a short cut to save him from wasting any more time on the project. If Tom Swift had the specimen, he would quit. I-I guess I’m a little bit vain about the way I can mimic voices, and this gave me a chance to show off. Besides, I saw no harm in doing it.”
“No harm?” Bud snorted. “You had Swift Enterprises in a real lather when we found out.”
Nolan spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “I’m truly sorry,” he repeated.
“How were you able to find out how my father’s voice sounded?” Tom asked.
“I listened to a recording of a speech he made at the Fourth of July rally here in Shop ton,” Nolan explained. “I borrowed the tape from a local radio station.
Guess that’s how your security men got onto me.”
160 THE VISITOR FROM PLANET X
“What did this fellow Runkle look like?” Ames asked.
Nolan thought for a moment. “Oh, he was past middle age, I should say.
Grizzled hair, thick-lensed glasses. And he was quite heavy-set.”
“Hmm. Then it certainly wasn’t Narko,” Ames murmured to Tom.
The young inventor nodded. “I believe I know him. The name just came back to me. I met a Professor Runkle in New York about a month ago, at a scientific convention. He was a member of the visiting Brungarian delegation.”
“We’ll check on him,” Ames promised. He turned back sternly to the young actor. “All right, Nolan, I guess you can go. But I warn you-no more impersonations.”