“Oh,” Wildsmith said again. “Well, that’s good, isn’t it? So you owe me dinner.”

“Yes. Of course.”

Wildsmith narrowed his eyes. “You know, I was anticipating feeling triumphant at this moment. Or maybe vindicated, or just to have slightly impressed you, but instead you seem to be in the grip of despair. Is it really that bad I’m not a fraud?”

Aaron tried to make himself sound more enthusiastic. “No, of course it’s not. Congratulations. You’ve more than proved yourself. It still doesn’t make any sense that you can do this, but you quite clearly can.”

Wildsmith leaned back and steepled his hands, which was to say, he angled his right against the split hook. “You wanted to know if I was a liar, and you’ve proved to your own satisfaction that I’m not. So is this attitude of dismay because you no longer understand the world around you, or is it that you’ve run out of excuses not to trust me?”

It was a provocation Aaron didn’t have the energy to deal with. He did try, but what came out of his mouth was, “I don’t think I can trust anyone else.”

Wildsmith’s light eyes widened sharply. “Are you all right?”

“I— Just give me a moment, would you? Or, no, tell me something. When you make very specific assertions, as with my brother-in-law. You said that the rose bed was just an example, a lucky guess.”

“It was.”

“But with Paul’s indiscretion, you said you knew. That you saw it.”

“Not saw, felt. I had a very strong feeling.”

“How? Where does it come from?”

Wildsmith gestured helplessly. “I have absolutely no idea. I try to put myself in the writer’s shoes when I read hands, and sometimes I get quite vivid, definite impressions, and sometimes they’re very strong. I don’t know what gives me the clue, but I bet you have similar things in your field—policeman’s instinct, or hunches, or whatever you call them. I think it’s training oneself to note the tiny things that other people don’t pay attention to.”

“But you felt certain about Paul? That wasn’t a wild guess that happened to land?”

Wildsmith exhaled. “Anything I say is a guess, in the sense that I can’t know it to be true. But I didn’t pull it out of my—out of the blue and it’s not something I’ve ever said before. I had a very, very strong impression that he’d just fucked, and I really cannot tell you more. Why does it matter?”

“I just want a comparison,” Aaron said. “Because when you said number seven—you remember hand number seven?—was probably a killer, how sure were you about that?”

Wildsmith didn’t speak for a moment. Then he said, “Can I see it again?”