第52章

"Because they took me for you, Tom." "For me?""Yes.The night I called at your house, and found you were not at home, I put back in my pocket a bundle of papers I had brought over to show you.They were plans of a little kitchen appliance a friend of mine had invented, and I wanted to ask your opinion of it.""These scoundrels must have followed me, or have seen the bundle of papers, and, mistaking me for you, they followed, attacked me in a lonely spot and, bundling me and my wrecked wheel into an auto, carried me off.They first demanded that I gave up the 'plans,' and when I wouldn't they choked off my cries for help and knocked me into unconsciousness.Then they brought me here, and kept me here for several days.

"They soon learned that the plans I had weren't those they wanted, though what they were thin after I couldn't imagine.Only, from what I laser overheard, I knew they mistook me for you and that they were bitterly disappointed in not getting plans of some new airship you were working on.They have kept me a prisoner ever since, and though they offered to let me go if I would keep silent, I refused.I did not think, to secure my own comfort, I should let such men go unpunished if I could bring about their arrest.""I should say not!" cried Tom.

"Did they treat you brutally, Mr.Nestor?" asked Mr.Damon.

"Not after they found out who I was, by looking through my wallet.Of course they didn't behave very decently, but they weren't actually cruel, except that they bound and gagged me.Oh, but I'm glad you came, Tom! How did it happen?"Then they told Mr.Nestor their story, and how the test of the new Air Scout had led to his rescue.

"But where are the Secret Service men?" asked Mr.Terrill, when it became evident that none them was on guard at the cabin.

Later it developed that, by following a false clew, the Secret Service men had been drawn miles away from the cabin.And only that Tom and his companions in the silent airship saw the men.Mr.Nestor might nothave been rescued for some further time.

His version of what had happened was correct.He had been mistaken for Tom, and the spy with the gold tooth and his accomplice had waylaid Mary's father, under the belief that it was Tom Swift with the plans of the new silent motor.Mr.Nestor had been attacked while riding his wheel in a lonely place, and had been carried off and kept in hiding, a prisoner even after his identity became known.

"Well, this is a good night's work!" exclaimed Tom, when the two rogues had been sent to jail and Mr.Nestor taken to the Bloise farmhouse, to be refreshed before he went home.Word of his rescue was telephoned to Mary and her mother, and it can be imagined how they regarded Tom Swift for his part in the affair.

Little the worse for his experience, save that he was very nervous, Mr.Nestor was taken home.He gave the details of his being waylaid, and told how the men, for many days, were at their wits' ends to keep him concealed when they found what a stir his disappearance had created.The conspirators were well supplied with money, and in the automobile they took their prisoner from one place to another.They had usurped the use of the cabin and had lived there nearly a week in hiding, leaving just before the first visit of Tom and Jackson.The rifled wallet had been dropped by accident.

And it did not take much delving to disclose the fact that, Lydane, "Gold Tooth," as he was called, and his crony, were spies in the pay of the Universal Flying Machine Company.As the men went under several aliases there is no need of giving their names.It is to be doubted if they ever used their real ones--or if they had any.

Of course, there was quite a sensation when Mr.Nestor was found, and a greater one when it became known the part the Universal Flying Machine people had in his disappearance in mistake for Tom.The officials of the company were indicted, and several of the minor ones sent to jail but Gale and Ware escaped by remaining abroad.

It came out that they both knew of the acts of Lydane and his companion in crime, and that the two officials realized the mistake that had been made by their clumsy operatives.It was believed that thisknowledge led to the visit of Gale to Tom, the time the latter's suspicions were first aroused.Gale made a clumsy attempt to clear his own skirts of the conspiracy, but in vain, though he did escape his just punishment.