"It was not. If you're really interested, I can prove an alibi; I was inhaling bacon and eggs at the Elysion, or beer _chez_ Mannering--where Miss Hawthorne's staying--at the time." Teal wrinkled his brow. "Didn't I hear you mention Snooper?" he prompted, and Storm nodded. "Snooper was at Raegenssen's last night. And I let him go--you can tell that to your Board of Inquiry! And now, if you don't mind, we'll leave the subject until this afternoon." The Board assembled in the Chief Commissioner's room at two o'clock, and Storm took his place at one end of the table without a trace of embarrassment. Teal, who sat on his right, was less self-confident, for Inspector Teal was a conventional detective with a proper awe for the majesty of Higher Command. Bill Kennedy, the Assistant Commissioner, shook hands with Storm as he passed, although his usual cheeriness was singularly half-hearted. The Chief, Sir Brodie Smethurst, was the last to arrive, and with him came a man whom no one present with the exception of Storm had expected to see. "What's the Home Secretary doing in this picnic?" demanded Teal in a hoarse whisper, and Storm shrugged. "I asked him to come," he stated shortly. The preliminary business was soon over, for in theory the Board had assembled to make an inquiry into Storm's failure to prevent the robbery at Moraine's; and then Storm rose to give an account of his progress with the main problem. "I have no excuses to make for the Moraine's affair," he said. "On that score you may take what action you like. The second point is the double burglary at Raegenssen's early this morning. I was the first burglar, but I don't know who the second was--although I could name the man, with certainty, in two guesses. And I'll make you a prophecy: within the next forty-eight hours the man known as Raegenssen will either have disappeared or been killed! ... I have no excuses for the burglary either. It merely happened to be necessary. By swearing information I might conceivably have got a search warrant, but I decided that that course would be both risky and futile, because the issue of the warrant would alarm the man I was anxious to trap; futile, because it might have been necessary to repeat the search without the man being aware that an official search had been made. I was both lucky and unlucky. I found what I expected, to a certain extent, but the arrival of the police gave me no time to find out all that I wanted to. To this moment Raegenssen does not know that his visitor was not a common thief, and therefore he will be killed. If I had revealed my identity to the police, he would have recognised me, and _I_ should have been killed. It was, you see, a matter of my life or--his." They listened without comprehending. "You suspect Raegenssen of having some connection with the Alpha Triangle?" suggested Smethurst.