The mainstream media has joined the hunt, egged on by the Internet, which is bursting with questions about the baby’s health, her provenance and even her existence. “The shroud of Suri has yet to be lifted,” intoned The Associated Press. “Missing: baby girl of press-addicted parents,” Newsweek said.

Image Us Weekly ran a story last week on Suri Cruise, with photos of her mother, Katie Holmes, but none of the baby herself. Credit... Lars Klove for The New York Times

While others fanned the flames, the approach at People has been minimalist, giving no hint that Mr. Cruise and Ms. Holmes are living at the white-hot center of a sensational tabloid mystery.

Larry Hackett, the managing editor of People, said that while People may be accused of going soft in hopes of getting the pictures, the magazine was the first, in mid-June, to flag that after 49 days, baby Suri had not materialized in public. A chart showed that this was an unusual delay for a celebrity baby; the pictures of the Pitt-Jolie baby, Shiloh, appeared seven days after her birth. “What gives?” People asked aloud of the delay. It quoted Mr. Cruise as saying that all was well.

Beyond that, Mr. Hackett said, People may appear soft compared with other magazines because it does not present as fact anything that it cannot verify. He said the magazine had no evidence of anything wrong with the baby or awry in the Cruise-Holmes relationship. The two are not married, but reports over the weekend suggested that a wedding may be imminent and that the couple may show off the baby at their nuptials, making the pictures public to everyone at once.

Mr. Hackett said he would love to have the baby pictures and that the magazine’s treatment of Mr. Cruise and Ms. Holmes and other celebrities “should put us in good stead because we’re fair and that’s paid off for us in the past.”

He said Team Cruise was fully aware that People wanted the pictures, but in terms of making a pitch, he declined to be specific. “Nothing any editor says to Tom Cruise and his camp isn’t anything they haven’t heard before,” he said.

Mr. Dolce of Star said there were several negotiating tactics that magazines used behind the scenes to land a celebrity. “You could promise no negative stories on Tom and Katie for X number of months, though Tom and Katie would probably ask for a blackout more than anything else,” he said. “Or you might swing a deal like OK! had with Jessica Simpson — we’ll pay you $5 million and that will cover the next four stories.”