Maev Kennedy rounds up the action from yesterday's Da Vinci trial, in which a surprising new star emerged.
Mr Justice Peter Smith sports such a magnificent black moustache worthy of a Victorian beadle, that it's impossible to tell whether he's smiling or not - as when he assured court 61 in the High Courts yesterday that he is merely "a simple Northern soul".
He is the simple Northern soul charged with disentangling the labyrinthine conspiracy theory, somewhere between six degrees of separation and Harry Potter's wizard chess, that the 1982 bestseller The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail was plagiarised by Dan Brown in his 2003 novel, the Da Vinci Code.
Already the two sides have accused one another of "a low level of abstraction" and "a very high level of generality". Already Mr Justice Smith's court looks like a reading group with unusually uncomfortable chairs, littered with teetering piles of the sort of books you normally find shelved by CDs of singing dolphins and crystals offering protection from gamma rays from Mars.
Richard Leigh takes occasional notes, with an extraordinary silver fountain pen the size of a flash lamp. His fellow author Michael Baigent takes copious notes, in minuscule handwriting, on slivers of post-it notes that he carefully sticks into a notebook no bigger than a playing card. Dan Brown takes no notes, and never moves: he sits, arms folded, gazing up at the judge, eerily still, apparently unblinking and unbreathing.
Mr Justice Smith was almost certainly smiling when he brought the court to a stunned silence, interrupting exposition of the crucial significance of Clovis, the murder of Dagobert, Pepin the Fat and Pepin d'Heristal, by raising the question of 1187 and all that.
John Baldwin, QC for Random House, had just been explaining how the Knights Templar had fallen out with the Priory of Sion in 1188. For now, take it that you don't need to know why this matters, though it may yet turn out to be vital information.
"It's not surprising," murmured Mr Justice Smith, "given what had happened in 1187."
Both sides' QCs gaped at him, like not-quite-smart-enough students confronted by a tutor who has read on to that vital next page.
"The loss of the Kingdom of Jerusalem?" the judge reminded them. "Due to the stupid actions of their Grand Master in two battles?"
A great ache of silent panic gripped the court, and Mr Justice Smith may well have smiled under the moustache. "You won't find that in the Da Vinci Code," Mr Baldwin assured him, "that's for sure."
"Oh I think you will," murmured Mr Justice Smith, very possibly smiling once again.
The simple Northern soul then retired with a sack of books, to spend the next week reading. Anyone who thinks high court judges earn easy money only has to bear in mind the fact that his bag includes not merely the concrete-block sized HBHG and DVC, but The Woman with the Alabaster Jar, by the magnificently named Margaret Starbird (also author of Mary Magdalene, Bride in Exile, and Goddess in the Gospels, Reclaiming the Sacred Feminine), and Templar Revelation, Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ, by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, whose front cover is adorned with high praise from Colin Wilson, author of the Atlas of Holy Places and Holy Sites, who describes is as "One of the most fascinating books I have read since The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail."
The case resumes next week. Don't forget about 1187.
