"Routine—only routine."
Then, to Les King's practiced eye, Entman proved it wasn't routine at all by entering the laboratory and gathering up a loose pile of notes lying there on a table. He seemed to momentarily forget King's presence as he went through the notes, sorted them carefully, and brought them back into the office.
King watched as Entman then deposited them in a small safe. He closed the safe but didn't lock it. Then he turned, beamed myopically at his visitor, and said, "Now I'm at your service, young man."
"Fine, Doctor. Now, this series we're planning will highlight modern techniques with an eye to illustrating ..."
While King asked questions and Entman answered, another part of King's mind was busy with the real problem at hand. Entman would, no doubt, lock the safe before he left the office. Burglary—a risk King was willing to take—would get him back into the office when no one was around, but how could he open the safe? Walking straight to the thing he was after had been fine. Having been put in a position to get to know what the notes looked like was another astounding piece of good fortune. All this, however, could turn out to mean nothing because he didn't know how to crack a safe.
He would have to report failure after being so close.
"As I said," Entman prattled on happily, "when I was at Johns Hopkins I—"
The desk phone rang. Entman picked it up, answered it and then hung up. "Would I impose if I asked you for a fifteen-minute break? Some people are calling that I must see—an appointment I forgot."
"Not at all," Les King assured him. "I'd like to do a little work on these notes to see if I left out anything."
"So good of you. Boring people, really. I'll get rid of them as soon as possible."