"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 Shopton," Nolan explained. "I borrowed the tape from a local radio station. Guess that's how your security men got onto me."
"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."