The news prompted feverish speculation in the months following the story's publication. Attention quickly focused on Elm Guest House, an otherwise nondescript Edwardian house near Barnes, in southwest London.

During the 1980s the guest house was frequented by male prostitutes as a place to take their clients, including a number of younger men (at the time the age of consent for gay couples was 21). A fringe Tory group, the Conservative Group for Homosexual Equality, described it in a 1982 newsletter as being "well served by underground and bus services and by British Rail and is near the M4, A3, A4 and A40...The facilities include a sauna, solarium and video studio."

Seven days after the original story was published, the Daily Mail followed up with one of its own. This time the story explicitly mentioned "an alleged brothel in South London" at which "an address book which lists prominent individuals" was allegedly found. Although four people were charged "in connection with...unlawful activities", including the guest house owners Haroon Kasir and his wife Carole, none of the prominent individuals were named nor is it reported that they were questioned.

In fact, the police denied that the list mentioned in the Daily Express article and Daily Mail even existed. According to a short news story in The Times, published in early September 1982, Scotland Yard told the paper that "no list of brothel clients had been passed to senior detectives or to the Special Branch" and that "no MPs had been questioned".