The study has no sign of mouths.

A shovel, a flashlight, a camera, a ball of twine, a jar of blue ink, and a brush stained with blue ink were left out on the desk.

The walls are covered with bookshelves packed densely with books: anthropology, archaeology, business, American finance, art, art history, and the occult.

Zoe looks at the items on the desk. The camera is in good working order but needs film. The shovel and flashlight are both covered in dried mud; the jar of ink is purple and dried shut; the brush is dried to the point of uselessness. The ball of twine is marked throughout its length with ink marks (matching the jar of ink); she sees several knots tied into it.

"I wonder what he was inking."

Lacie begins to flip through the occult books. Soon she finds Communion Rites of Victorian Death Cults by Francis J. Hickering.

Zoe begins to look for correspondence. She doesn't find any, other than first drafts of letters to Mr. Winston.

Lacie wonders if maybe there's an address book with information about how to contact him. She finds Mr. Henslowe's address book but it does not contain a Francis Hickering.

"Oh, perhaps someone should look through that ledger in the other room... there might be records of transactions with people of interest."

Lacie checks the occult book for any contact information for Francis J. Hickering on the off chance that it's listed there.

Tucked into the front cover she finds a picture of the back of the Henslowe mansion. On the back of the photograph is written:

2 - Grant
3 - John and Mary
4 - Zachariah and Millicent
5 - back to 1

"If you look at the open windows, they're 2, 3, 4, and 5 going from top-left to bottom-right. Maybe it was their rooms? What does 'back to one' mean, though?"

"If we think the numbers are referring to rooms, maybe --" Unfortunately he doesn't have much of an idea about maybe what, since "the one on the top left" is kind of spurious and not based on anything other than what Zoe just said.

"I don't suppose any of those names are in the address book? Zachariah or Millicent especially, I'd expect plenty of Johns."

She looks, but there is no Zachariah or Millicent in the address book.

Zoe pokes her head in the numbered rooms. 

When she goes to the room that corresponds to 2, she sees a bare mattress on the floor. This was once a servant's room, but the Henslowes haven't had money for more than one servant in a long time. Three is a separate servant's room, now empty; four is Douglas Henslowe's room (the roof is half-rotted and collapsing in). 

When she runs into the cat she gives it berth, because it is the Mouthiest thing here and she doesn't trust it.

Lacie digs through the ledger for names. Unfortunately, she still doesn't know how to do accounting. (If only her brother were here--!)

Still, she knows enough to recognize that none of the names on the list are mentioned.

Carrie looks at the occult book written by Mr. Hickering to find information about its author. 

Francis J Hickering is a professor of Occult Studies at Miskatonic University. His dissertation was on the use of the declined relative pronoun in the Necronomicon.

"So, if we assume Zoe was right about the top left to bottom right thing which I'm inclined to for now since I don't have any other ideas, 2 was a servant's room, probably not Grant since the name doesn't show up at all in the ledger, and 3 was another servant's room which is probably not John and Mary since those names don't show up in the ledger either, and 4 was Douglas's room? And 5, the hallway, is 'back to 1.' So the other names can't refer to the occupants of their respective rooms."

Carrie looks at the ink on the twine more closely to see if she can figure out anything about what it was used for.

The ball of twine is marked throughout its length with ink marks (matching the jar of ink) separated by several feet of clean twine. Each stretch of twine has a knot in it (not at its center point). Five clusters of ink marks; four lengths of clean twine, each length marked by a knot.
 
She notices some mud is dried on the twine, just like on the trowel and on the flashlight.

Lost in thought, Zoe looks at the window.

The Henslowe estate is slowly sinking in the swamp it once bordered. Old pillars stick out of the high grasses, marking the site of a vanished building. Broken walls outline the edges of old structures. A car lies drowned in the mud. Leaves, blown in on an old storm, stick to everything. Birds nest in the crannies of a ruined outbuilding. Reeds grow up through the splintering walls of a forgotten shed. The song of bugs carries out of the swamp beyond, where alligators float and stare out of the canopied gloom. Directly behind the house, she sees a graveyard.

"Hey guys maybe we should take the twine and the shovel to that graveyard? --Also I'm curious what's in the car and outbuilding and shed, but the graveyard seems like it might have Zachariah and Millicent and so on in it."

Meanwhile--

Anemone leaves the room and spends a bit soothing Magnificence and then instead of heading back in to hang out with Mrs. Henslowe and everyone else she looks for Carruthers, so they can stay away from that cat who has NO manners.

She looks through a den, full of animal heads covered with dust, before finding Carruthers in the kitchen.

The kitchen smells of garbage. Bread lies molding on the counter. In neither the kitchen nor the den does she find any water stains or mouth-shaped signs.

"Hi! Sorry for intruding, the cat bit the monkey and I figured I'd get him out of there before there was any more trouble than that. He's a good boy, but he can only take so much provocation."

"It's all right, ma'am. Would you like more tea?"

"No, no, I'm fine. The cake was very good, though. - have you worked here long?"

Carruthers looks slightly uncomfortable, as if he has a question he would very much like to ask and can't. "Yes, ma'am, my whole life."

"Gosh. I guess I've been with the circus my whole life. - also I'm not really a ma'am, you know, so. You're fine."

"Not safe not to call white folk 'ma'am.' Not round these parts."

"Right, yeah, I never much liked visiting the south. 'm only half white, though, if it helps. Mama was an Indian."

"Ah, sense." Carruthers considers this and then says, "Name's John."

"Ah. I'm Mary. Don't suspect I'm the sort of person who fancy people usually call on for help, but I understand the details of Mr. Henslowe's case are of an unsavory enough nature that occasionally people get a little desperate, in looking for people who might know anything pertinent. - I was wondering if you might know anything? Since you've been observing the whole thing from a slightly different angle than everyone else."