Rapidly he cross-questioned them, writing quickly down in shorthand every word they spoke. Almost endless were the questions he put concerning the whole gang. One by one the name of each member of it was entered in the notebook, followed by an address which, the men declared, would find him—or her. The number of members, we thus discovered, amounted to over twenty, of whom no less than eight were women. Jasmine Gastrell's career was described in detail, also Connie Stapleton's, Doris Lorrimer's, Bob Challoner's, Hugesson Gastrell's, and the careers of all the rest in addition. The names of some of these were known to us, but the majority were not. Incidentally we now found out that Hugesson Gastrell had never been in Australia, nor yet in Tasmania, and that the story of his having been left a fortune by an uncle was wholly without foundation. The natural son of well-to-do people in Yorkshire, he had been launched penniless on the world to make his way as best he could, and the rapidity with which he had increased his circle of acquaintance among rich and useful people from the time he had become a member of the gang had been not the least remarkable feature in his extraordinary career. I shall never forget that cross-examination, or the rapidity with which it was conducted. In the course of a quarter of an hour many mysteries which had long puzzled us were revealed, many problems solved. The woman whose stabbed and charred body had been found among the _debris_ of the house in Maresfield Gardens burnt down on Christmas Eve was, it seemed, another of Gastrell's victims; he had stabbed her to death, and the house had been fired with a view to destroying all traces of the crime. Questioned further, the elder of the two scoundrels went on to state that he had been in the house in Maresfield Gardens on the night that Osborne and I had called there, just before Christmas, the night we had driven up there from Brooks's Club on the pretext of Osborne's having found at the club a purse which he believed—so he had told the woman Gastrell—to have been dropped by Hugesson Gastrell. Other members of the gang had been in the house at the time, the man said,—just before we entered they had been in the very room into which Jasmine Gastrell had shown us when she had at last admitted us, which of course accounted for the dirty tumblers I had noticed on the table, and the chair that had felt hot when I sat in it. She had first opened the door to us, the man continued, under the impression that we were additional members of the gang whom she expected—our rings at the door had accidentally coincided with the rings these men would have given. Then, at once discovering her mistake, and recognizing Osborne's voice, she had deemed it prudent to admit us, thinking thus to allay any suspicion her unusual reception might otherwise arouse in us.