Calculated Risk conclusion

[Leslie]

“Took your advice and sold the burgers-in-a-bun off the stall in the street. Fitted an oil-fired stove and cooked ‘em right there. We did so well a businessman here in town financed us to take on this place and move right into town. Here, sample the goods.” And he handed Benguy a fresh steaming specimen.
Traveller Benson, with a mission to complete, made the food last as long as he could, chatting to Oswald, and to Dorcas who made intermittent appearances from the back room. Customers came and went, which helped spin out the time. Benguy had to concoct a fiction about having employment that caused him to travel here and there, but this was another of the skills experience had taught him. Outside, the night closed in, suitably dark and growing colder. Consulting his watch again, Benguy knew that the Library would be closed. He wished Oswald and Dorcas the best of luck, picked up his paper bag and went out, fastening his topcoat and turning up the collar.
Walking slowly on the approach to the Library gave him time to check that no one was around to see him duck down the side path. The staff-entrance’s wooden door submitted easily to the wrecking bar; Benguy pushed it open and waited, just in case there was an alarm system – but nothing happened. Using the torch, he found his way through to the Memorial Room; the door here was not locked; he went in.
The photographs had been taken from the walls; there were no curtains at the windows; the display cabinets were all shoved together at one end of the room. Benguy shone his torch on one after another, looking for the cabinet containing Forthled’s machines. He had to risk the noise and drag a couple of the cabinets about to reach the one he wanted; it was locked. He tried three of the small master keys before the fourth seemed to engage with the wards. But the key would not complete a full turn.
Frustration began to stir up resentment in Benguy, anger that a fool like Wayner Bullen should have put him in this mess, endanger his career after the successful missions he had under his belt.
Benguy gave the key an extra twist, and it snapped off in the lock.
He was about to say something very profane very loudly when he heard the damaged back-door creak and a man’s voice called, “Who’s there? This is Officer Hammond. Whoever’s there come out now.”
Desperation time! He could do nothing about the broken key jamming the lock. If he got away he was unlikely to go unnoticed hanging around town and coming back for another crack at it; any way, as he had drawn attention to the cabinet someone might investigate and find the calculator. The job had to be done now! He could knock the police officer unconscious and finish his work, but there were extremely tough rules about assaulting beings while on a mission. He would have to justify it at a judicial hearing – but, what the hell, wasn’t this a top class emergency? He would be exonerated. Benguy picked up the wrecking bar and smashed the top of the cabinet.
In answer to the noise of breaking glass, Officer Hammond’s bellow boomed through the building, “I hear you! Stay where you are, you’re under arrest!”
Benguy pushed the Forthled machines aside and, with a huge sigh of relief, took hold of the small solar calculator that threatened world history.
The waving beam of Officer Hammond’s powerful torch was prying about the library and his heavy footsteps were working closer to the Memorial Room.
Benguy had to get out, and quickly. There was only the one door to the room and Officer Hammond was on the other side of it. The windows were high up and designed to open only a limited way, there was no chance of escape through there. He considered the wrecking bar and Hammond’s head.
Pocketing the calculator, his hand touched the Recall Recognition Transmitter. The obvious solution! For a moment he feared that he was losing his grip, that he must have panicked. He took a deep breath and pressed the button. Officer Hammond, torch in one hand, pistol in the other, entered an unoccupied room.
Subsequent investigation confirmed forced entry to the building, a broken key in a cabinet lock, the shattered glass top -–and nothing missing. Clearly, the attempted theft had been foiled – but how the would-be thief had escaped remained a town mystery for years.

Benguy’s debriefing was made direct to the Director, who personally delivered the calculator into the hands of two Security Guards to be secured in the Centre's Museum. When the office doors closed, the Director relaxed and produced a bottle of whisky and two glasses from a drawer in his desk. The debriefing became very informal.
“You promise me you didn’t clout that Police Officer?” he asked Benguy, but there was a grin at the corners of his mouth.
“Absolutely, Chief,” Ben made the ‘cut my throat if I lie’ gesture. “If he’d been a second or so quicker, it might have been a different story, though.”
“And the Librarian didn’t realise you’d been in before?”
“No. I’m sure she didn’t. Course, Oswald and Dorcas, the couple in the Burger Bar, they remembered me. But no problem there. I was glad they’d done so well, they deserved a bit of good luck.”
“Yes. Interesting that story. The name of the businessman who financed them, was it by any chance MacDonald ?”
“I don’t know, Chief. Is it important?”
“Just curious. Forget it. Have another drink.”