It was soon discovered that Booth's intimate associates, with whom he held private confidential intercourse, were John H. Surratt, and his mother, Mary E. Surratt, Lewis Payne, George A. Atzerodt, Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, David E. Herold, Samuel Arnold, and Michael O'Laughlin; and that the house of Mrs. Surratt was the headquarters of the conspirators in Washington. Arnold and O'Laughlin were intimate personal friends and associates of Booth at his home in Baltimore. Booth, Payne, and Atzerodt were frequent callers at the house of Mrs. Surratt, where they were always made welcome; their business was always of a private, confidential nature, and was with John Surratt when he was at home, but in his absence was with Mrs. Surratt herself. Booth had every privilege granted to him in that house, his requests for a private conference being always responded to by John or his mother. To Booth it seemed to be a matter of indifference which of the two it was. In tracing his movements the last few months preceding the assassination, it soon became evident that he was acting under the impulse of a purpose that had entire possession of his mind. Having undertaken to secure the accomplishment of the assassinations planned by Davis and his Canada Cabinet, in the latter part of October, 1864, he was constantly employed in making his preparations for the fulfillment of his contract, and gave no time or thought, apparently, to anything else. He entirely abandoned his profession, that of an actor, and lost all interest in the stage. He no longer consorted with those of his profession to any extent, except as it might be in preparation for the work to which he had devoted his life, and accepted, instead, the fellowship of such low-browed scoundrels as Payne and Atzerodt as better suited to his purpose. They became mere tools in his hands, sympathizing with him fully in his intense disloyalty, but being actuated at the same time by a mercenary motive, the evidence justifying the conclusion that they had a promise of a large pecuniary reward. He spent a great deal of time with these men, studying their characters, and schooling them in the parts they were to act. They were all known to the liverymen of the city, of whom they very frequently obtained horses to ride about the suburbs and study the roads, that they might be thoroughly familiar with the locality when the time should come for them to make their escape. They were all known, also, to go constantly armed with revolvers and bowie-knives by those who had opportunities of seeing them together in their private intercourse. They boarded at different hotels, and frequently changed their boarding-places, but were frequent visitors of each other at whatever places they might be stopping, and their intercourse was always observed to be that of privacy; and so it became a just cause for suspicion to have been an intimate companion of Booth, and finally led to the arrest of them all.