He spread out the net of inquiry in ever wider circles.

Terentyeva and the other female witnesses, who were fed well while in prison, and expected not only amnesty but also remuneration for their services, gave more and more vent to their imagination.

They "recollected" and revealed before the Commission of Inquiry a score of religious crimes which they alleged had been perpetrated by the Jews prior to the Velizh affair, such as the murder of children in suburban inns, the desecration of church utensils and similar misdeeds.
The Commission was not slow in communicating the new revelations to the Tzar who followed vigilantly the developments in the case.

But the Commission had evidently overreached itself.

The Tzar began to suspect that there was something wrong in this endlessly growing tangle of crimes.