Magnificence concludes the human's purpose is escorting other humans places and fetching them items. Magnificence has seen many such humans before.

Inside, the house is not quite as big as its antebellum architecture makes it look from the outside.

The ground floor is made up of large high-ceilinged rooms with large windows and large fireplaces. Paint is peeling, rugs are worn flat, bulbs are burnt out. The place smells of damp plaster, stale flowers, and cat boxes, plus the swamp smell coming in through open porch doors and screened-in windows.

Carruthers escorts the investigators from the hall to the parlor. The hall is dark and gothic. The lamps are covered and shadows cling to the walls, linger in the high, vaulted ceiling, and seem to claw down the twisted stairwell. The furniture in the parlor looks like it's never been sat on, or maybe only years ago.

There is an open barrel-top desk with a ledger in plain sight.

No one notices any mouths or water stains anywhere in the front hall or the parlor.

Carruthers stands in the parlor, but gestures for the investigators to sit.

“Mother Henslowe will be with you shortly. Would you like tea?”

"That would be lovely, thank you." Zoe is assuming it will be chilled sweet tea and if it is instead hot she will hold the cup embarrassedly and pretend she's happy to have it while not actually drinking any.

It's Savannah. Why would you serve hot tea in Savannah?

Carruthers departs and a few minutes later returns with sweet tea and slices of cake for everyone. "Ring the bell if you need me, sir, ma'am," he says, gesturing to a bell on the desk.

Anemone has some cake. Magnificence can have cake too if he eats it neatly. Anemone tries to impress on him the importance of eating things neatly when in fancy people's houses.

A few minutes later, Mrs. Henslowe appears. The investigators stand politely when she enters the room. 

Anemone stands a half-second after everyone else; she doesn't know how fancy people work but she is not trying to be difficult.

"Lovely to meet you too, my dear, such polite young people," she says in a lovely Southern drawl. 

"It's a grand house, thank you for the welcome. This tea is delicious." Zoe will continue making various compliments in this vein until she senses it would be acceptable to bring up "We spoke to your son, Douglas, yesterday."

"Carruthers said," Mrs. Henslowe says. "You're investigating his case?"

"You have a lovely animal," she says to Anemone. A cat twirls around the legs of her chair. "I hope he will enjoy playing with my Virgil."

"It didn't start out that way, but he gave us the most promising leads we've been able to find. We were hired by Douglas's friend's daughter, Mrs. Winston-Rogers, to look into some matters concerning her late father, and they led us to your son."

"Well," she says, drinking her tea, "of course we will help you any way we can. My Douglas is the man of the house, after all, when he says we're at your service then we are."
 
(Virgil eyes Magnificence suspiciously and hisses.)

"We'll be most grateful for any assistance you can provide." Zoe will pull out her notebook. "Douglas said that he hid away a journal where he had kept his own investigation notes, along with a key? Do you know where those might be?"

Anemone pats Magnificence and attempts to silently warn him not to start anything with the cat.

"I reckon I don't know," Mrs. Henslowe says."My Douglas went out on business with Mr. Winston in 1923," Mrs. Henslowe says. "He was attacked by hedonists and folk of loose morals, and he defended himself as is only proper. And they put him in a hospital!" She sounds very offended. She also seems to believe that being attacked by hedonists and folk of loose morals is just the sort of thing that happens when one is off on business.

"He seemed entirely sound, when we spoke with him. Is there some reason he's not able to stay at home with you?"

"Well, we did get him removed from that awful hospital in '32," Mrs. Henslowe says, "and he wrote to Walter. He spent most of the time in his study, drawing and sketching. Sometimes he would yell and holler." She pauses. “It got that I was afraid of my own son. He had wounds on him, like cuts and bruises, that he couldn’t explain. Then he took to wandering the property near dark, poking around the grounds with his shovel, his camera, and a ball of twine.”

(Virgil bites Magnificence.)

"Virgil!" Mrs. Henslowe says. "Bad cat! --My apologies, my dear, he has grown disagreeable in his old age."

"Oh, I understand. - I'm gonna take Magnificence out for a moment, just so he knows he's safe, if you don't mind."

Once Anemone leaves, Carrie says, "I'm sorry. Did he have anything to say about why?"

"He couldn't explain." She shakes her head. "What he saw in California was too terrible for him to tell his mother about. I never really got my boy back."

"It must have been quite terrible, whatever happened. Mr. Winston was much the same, as time went on. Kept to his rooms, shouted, needed everything very clean -- well, I suppose you didn't mention an especial need for cleanliness."

'I think my only other question just now is how we could find Mr. Henslowe's friend, Mr. Hickering. If you don't know him, perhaps Mr. Henslowe kept an address book or something like that we could look in?"

"I don't know a Mr. Hickering," Mrs. Henslowe says, "but you can look in his study for an address book?"

Mrs. Henslowe takes you up the stairs and to Mr. Henslowe's study. "Now if you don't mind, dears, you caught me right before my morning nap. So I will have to be going. You may go anywhere you like on the house or grounds."