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With the events in chapter 4 and beginning of 5, they are anxious to start investigating. One wants to arrest maarvu, one is hunting the "wizard" who summoned the Umber Hulk and the Breatdrinker. I had to give him a crumb and had a woman eyewitnesses placed at both locations...And the rogue wants to infiltrate the Last Laugh...they are hard to keep on the tracks...
Do you have to keep them "on the tracks"? You could look at the party's hunches as opportunities to be exploited rather thans problems to be overcome. Let the rogue start infiltrating the Last Laugh, maybe with the help of one of the Striders, even let them make some progress in uncovering one or two low-level members (whom you could create) and make some contacts; that will set up the Laugh's nastiness toward the Striders later. You could let them get wind of the Laugh's wizard, and maybe hint that he might have had something to do with the umber hulk, which is a red herring, but what the hell? You could even use him to lead them to Tygot's, where Tygot could ask them if they're interested in the plaque that Tercival recently sold them....You could also have the Laugh be aware of the party rogue's indentity and intentions, so they could play him on a string, feed him false information, etc....If you think in terms of where ultimately you need to get to rather than how the book says to get there, lots of possibilities open up.
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My current party had the Cagewrights plan pretty well figured out by the end of Chapter 4. It helped that I used a lot of the RPGenius material, especially delvedeep's alternate Cagewright and Adimarchus foreshadowing. That gave them many clues to piece together.
Now they have finished the Battle of Redgorge and are poised to go one of several ways. To Sasserine to investigate the mayor's disappearance, to Cauldron to investigate Vhalantru and run into the assassins from Secrets of the Soul Pillars, to Occipitus with Kaurophon to take the Test of the Smoking Eye, or even to the Fiery Sanctum to take on the Cagewrights themselves!
I rather like that my party is NOT confined to the rails and can pretty much take the chapters in any order they like now.