Could the mounting public brinkmanship be mere diversion? Might Mr Gerry Adams and Mr David Trimble be privy to an intended outcome which would see the Ulster Unionist leader cheerfully restored as First Minister of Northern Ireland next month?
To pose the questions may be to provoke mirth in official London and Dublin, and ridicule among the political classes in Belfast. For, on the face of it, the idea of a "pre-cooked" deal would seem absurd. And yet it might well prove to be.
Mr Adams has often insisted that the public and private positions of Sinn Fein were one and the same, only to find himself foolishly ignored by commentators while subsequently found to have told a simple truth.
He gave early warning that the question of "all arms" was unlikely to be resolved by Mr Trimble's July 1st deadline. He equally left no doubt that he considered the statutory August 12th limit for the election of First and Deputy First Ministers a mere consequence of Mr Trimble's first deadline.
The Sinn Fein president has always maintained two things: his confidence that the weapons issue would be resolved, and his certainty that it would not be in accordance with a timetable set by the Ulster Unionists or British government.
Moreover, earlier this week a Sinn Fein source confided his expectation that the crisis would drag into the autumn, at which point the British government would be obliged to risk all in fresh Assembly elections. Again the caveat; so it might well prove to be.
To pose the questions need not be at all daft. Nor should it suggest an exercise in wishful thinking. Mr Trimble and Mr Adams, after all, have managed the seemingly impossible more than once in this process.
Even in his more malign scenario, the Ulster Unionist leader appears to anticipate "failure" in August and a resumption of negotiations in September. He has often told us the political process in Northern Ireland is considerably "more robust" than people sometimes allow.
Indeed, until his somewhat surprising outburst on Thursday, it seemed Mr Jeffrey Donaldson, too, was in for a long-haul negotiation which would end some time with decommissioning and the consequent security of the Belfast Agreement.
Even more to the point: the possibility of a "done deal" has suggested itself to many observers as a direct consequence of this latest massive undertaking by the British Prime Minister and the Taoiseach.
Neither leader is short of other issues demanding precious time. They are playing for the highest stakes in a negotiation one insider described this week, in almost hushed and reverent tones, as "extraordinarily balanced and sensitive".
Commensurate with the stakes are the risks Mr Blair - for at the end of the day it falls to him - appears prepared to take. The drip-feed of leaks since the Weston Park summit two weeks ago has dramatically raised the unionist fever.
Irish ministers may coolly contemplate mutual pain and gain. Mr Donaldson and Mr David Burnside, however, reflect the exasperation and dangerous alienation of unionists who thought Mr Trimble had already endured the pain and could now reasonably expect reward.
Nor does that sense of pain derive solely from Mr Trimble's "jump first, jump a second time" into government with Sinn Fein without winning concrete assurance that IRA decommissioning would follow.
Sullen unionist resentment is fired by the knowledge that the RUC's "Royal" title has already been consigned to the history books, that the harp and crown will follow, that the Union flag will be lowered for the last time over police stations across Northern Ireland come September, and that officers are abandoning the force in large numbers.
Anecdotal evidence from the campaign trail that his perceived complicity in the process which led to the Patten report had hurt Mr Trimble was amply borne out by the general election results on June 7th. And in the hearts of those most loyal to the Ulster Unionist leader still beats the fear that policing remains the issue which could finally "do" for Mr Trimble and the agreement.
It was precisely this fear which led the former Northern Ireland secretary, Mr Peter Mandelson, to warn against nationalist/republican/Irish Government insistence on maximising Patten as he took his controversial Police Bill through the last parliament.
The same fear is gripping some Trimble supporters now as they contemplate a heavily trailed package of measures they expect may go beyond Patten in terms of inquiries into the past conduct of the RUC; enhanced powers for the Policing Board, Oversight Commissioner and Ombudsman, with corresponding diminution in the power and accountability of the British Secretary of State; and consequent curtailment of the "operational independence" of the Chief Constable.
There is no unionist stomach for even half of what has been touted. Nor did the British government need Mr Donaldson or Mr Burnside to spell that out. Yet neither do we need leaks to tell us what Sinn Fein and the republican constituency require.
If Mr Blair intends to carry policing reform to what Mr Adams adjudges the Patten "threshold", the only possible explanation, surely, is that the Prime Minister knows what he's getting in return, and believes it will be enough to secure Mr Trimble's re-election as First Minister.
For how else would Mr Blair think to stop republicans and nationalists pocketing the concessions already on offer and using them as the launch-pad to yet another negotiation?