That led to a frank exchange of views, during which Aaron reminded Paul about the laws governing perjury and his intent to see them applied given the chance. He left in a thoroughly bad temper, and all the more frustrated with his failure to understand how Wildsmith had done it. He had no objection to falling out with his family on principle, but he didn’t want to do it for the sake of a cheat.

He arranged to buy Hollis a drink the next day, to let him know what was what. It was a slightly embarrassing meeting at first, since Hollis had intended to do Aaron a favour, and Aaron didn’t want to seem unappreciative.

“The problem is, Wildsmith was right,” he explained. “My cousin simply hasn’t a leg to stand on in terms of a complaint, however the man got or guessed his information. And, between us, I wouldn’t help Paul stand on it anyway. He’s behaved like a swine and been found out, and if he doesn’t like it, that’s his hard luck.”

“Fair enough,” Hollis said amicably. “Well, I’m happy to leave it if you think best, though we can’t have these people perpetrating frauds left and right.”

“I don’t know that Wildsmith is a fraud,” Aaron said. “At least, not in the sense of rifling people’s pockets for letters or bribing the servants for information. To be honest, I’m beginning to wonder if there’s something in it.”

Hollis squinted at him. “Really?”

It didn’t seem entirely unreasonable, now Aaron was used to the idea, that handwriting might betray personality on a large scale—vanity, or cruelty, or some such—and he was sufficiently familiar with the way mediums worked to see how Wildsmith could magnify a few generalities into something that felt impressive. But then there was Paul’s indiscretion, or what he’d said of Molesworth—or even what he’d said of Aaron’s own hand...

He wasn’t going to think about what Wildsmith had said of his hand right now.

“He was unquestionably correct several times. Maybe he’s just damned acute, I don’t know. I tell you what, it would be blasted useful if it was true. One could present a graphologist with letters from all the suspects in a case and ask him to pick the culprit.”

“Ha! A judge might have something to say about that,” Hollis said. “Then again, I expect people said as much about fingerprints thirty years ago. Do you really think there’s something there?”

“Not to convict on. But if he could offer reliable insights, as part of the whole picture—”