Dan Brown leaving court yesterday
Photograph: Getty Images
Maev Kennedy reports on a day of cross-examination at the Da Vinci Code trial

Court 61 is gradually starting to sink beneath a rising tide of paper. Several of the much-thumbed copies of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, and the novel it is alleged to have inspired, The Da Vinci Code, are starting to fall to pieces: The Holy Blood looks to have the weaker spine.

The court has now almost completed the cross examination of Michael Baigent, one of the Holy Blood authors, on his witness statement, which is 176 pages long. To the bafflement of the public gallery (including a row of students from the University of Syracuse, a woman with a woolly hat who launched into her own fierce cross examination of the man from the Church Times, and a man with a large yellow bag full of the Da Vinci Code stash cans - "as disapproved of by the publisher" - of his own design) none of the witness statement has actually been read out in court, so the evidence under discussion only ever emerges in momentary flashes of illumination.

At one point John Baldwin, QC, for the defence, invited Mr Baigent to turn to the authors' pitch, the synopsis of their ideas for The Holy Blood which Mr Baigent and his co-author Richard Leigh sent out to publishers and agents 28 years ago. Mr Baigent thumbed, baffled, through his massive file, and turned helplessly to the four-storey stack of file boxes behind the witness stand.

The judge pointed out the place in his own file.

"I have a cover sheet for it, and nothing under it," Mr Baigent said. The Random House QC pointed out another evidence bundle also included the document, and Mr Baigent was handed another bulky file, duly hunted through it, and laughed, his only laugh in a long stressful day. "There is obviously a gremlin at work. It says 'see combined bundle one, tab two."

The judge, refreshed by his week of reading, continues to pull the odd showstopper out of his book bag. At one point he triumphantly turned to a reference to the Knights Templar and the secret treasure of the Temple of Solomon on page 81 in Holy Blood which Mr Baigent was convinced they had included, but was unable to track down in his own book.

Much of the cross examination was over reviews and articles which, the authors claimed, supported their view that The Da Vinci Code had borrowed their central theme. One by one Mr Baldwin tore them to shreds.

"It was my fair understanding that this was what these commentators were saying, and I stand by that," Mr Baigent said, after one of his long, long silences, "but I cannot establish beyond all shadow of doubt that they share our beliefs on all these points."

Mr Baldwin snapped: "You cannot establish that they share any of your views."

Dan Brown gradually lost his eerily waxwork stillness. His shoulders unclenched, and he even addressed the odd whispered comment to his team.

Mr Justice Smith was worried about how the avid media would report all Michael Baigent's long, long pauses. The press should be very wary of attempting to give any impression of how a case is going, until all the evidence has been heard, he warned. So, wary it is.