LONDON. The baffling case of the vanished supermodel that has bedeviled London police for more than 8 weeks has been solved. In a dramatic, late-night raid on an isolated farmhouse in the remote, windswept countryside near Glasgow, detectives just last night rescued Meg Townsend, the 22-year-old Anson Cosmetics cover girl who has been missing for two months. Townsend has been kept, bound and gagged -- set free only for meals of tinned soup and for use of a makeshift lavatory -- in an unheated, and formerly abandoned, single-story stone cottage.

In what police are calling one of the more bizarre -- and bizarrely motivated -- kidnappings in recent British history, Townsend was apparently the target of a scheme concocted by a disturbed London advertising executive in a misguided attempt to exact revenge of some kind on a company, or companies, that he viewed as unfair competition (see related story below). Angus Wallace-Hogg, 48, of Wimbledon -- an American by birth -- has been identified as Ms. Townsend's lone kidnapper. Apprehended without resistance in last night's raid, Mr. Wallace-Hogg is being held by London police without bail, pending indictment by magisterial authorities here.

Be a model -- or just look like one! Finally! Meg Townsend's is the face that launched a thousand tabloid headlines. Now that she's free, Meg is smart enough to know that her marketability has increased a hundred-fold, thanks to the notoriety of the kidnapping. Look for Meg on the talk-shows, the lecture circuit, in the "Periscope" section of NEWSWEEK, and maybe even as the subject of a Barbara Walters interview.

LONDON. The fact that Angus Wallace-Hogg took a sudden leave of absence from his post as Creative Director of Robinson Packard McHugh Cavallieri the day before the disappearance of supermodel Meg Townsend went completely unconnected in the minds of Wallace-Hogg's colleagues. Or so comments Lars-Eric Nordstrom, the Swedish-born manager of the agency's London office. "We absolutely never connected the two events," Nordstrom told the SUN AND NEWS OF THE WORLD in an exclusive telephone interview from his country home in Surrey last evening. "I am shocked beyond telling. In retrospect, we might have seen this coming, in all honesty. Gus was completely stressed out over our loss of the Countess Svetlana skin-care account. But none of us had any idea that it had sent him 'round the bend. We're completely mortified." Nordstrom was referring to his agency's devastating loss of the multimillion-pound-sterling beauty-products account just last year. In a series of anonymous, threatening telephone calls made by Wallace-Hogg to Scotland Yard over the 8 weeks that he detained Ms. Townsend, the clearly disturbed ad man made it clear that he felt the campaign his agency had been developing for Countess Svetlana had been eclipsed, indeed stolen, by Hillyer, Jones, Lefkowitz & DaCapo -- the agency which made Miss Townsend "the face" of their cosmetics marketer, Anson Cosmetics. It has not been made clear what Mr. Wallace-Hogg hoped to gain by apprehending and detaining Ms. Townsend, who was obviously viewed by the mentally unstable executive as a scapegoat. No ransom demands were made in any of Wallace-Hogg's phone calls -- merely accusations of corporate thievery and veiled, unfulfilled threats of revenge. "It's all very sad," commented an anonymous senior staffer at Robinson Packard McHugh Cavallieri. "Pathetic, really."

"It's difficult to describe how 'out of the way' the house is," remarked Inspector Ian Montague of Scotland Yard, at this morning's press conference at which he detailed the apprehension of Angus Wallace-Hogg, alleged kidnapper of supermodel Meg Townsend. "I mean, it's in the absolute middle of nowhere. We'd never have found her without the lucky break we got. You know how desolate the Scottish countryside can be -- particularly at this time of year."

Desolate, indeed. But what has most of London buzzing this morning is the unlikely transformation of a formerly highly respected Anglo-American advertising executive into a monster-like kidnapper. The very idea that a man could be strolling through Green Park on the way to work in a Hardy Amies suit in the morning, and stuffing a young woman into the boot of his Peugeot that evening, has left those in London's business circles reeling.

A Yale University graduate, longtime U.K. resident, and award-winning creative executive for the London offices of three different "Top 10" international advertising agencies over a career that spanned more than 25 years, Angus Wallace-Hogg was described by the distraught by obviously relieved Townsend as "a monstrous man. Absolutely beastly!" Townsend went on to describe her treatment by her kidnapper as "abusive," but would not elaborate, pending meetings with her lawyers. "The man," she said, "is clearly demented."