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moment Ignatius Manly made Job himself look like a man who would fly off the handle at the merest
     slight. It was another of Manly’s ploys. “Members of the jury,” he said, “you will not decide this case on the interventions
     and histrionics of counsel. No, you will decide this case on the evidence. Are you going to mention the evidence at any stage
     today, Mr. Davenport?”
    “M’Lord, yes,” he replied. Davenport took a sip of water and brushed a couple of stray droplets from his mustache, which seemed
     to curl around his top lip and sneak into his mouth. “When you hear the evidence, ladies and gentlemen, you will ask yourselves:
     What possible defense can Richard Kingsley have?”
    I turned to Emma who was writing all this down. “That’s a question I keep asking myself,” I said. But she ignored me.
    I was hoping that Emma would respond. Few people can realize just how tedious advocates find the speeches of other advocates.
     Especially if they waffle on like Aubrey Davenport.
    One of the best ways to relieve the monotony is to chat to your colleagues around you. It is surprising how little the jury
     can hear. And one of the primary arts of defense is the whispered aside. A groan, a cough, a
sotto voce
mutter can do wonders to put off your opponent. After all, nine-tenths of defense work is an exercise in sabotage. But Davenport,
     with his mind-numbing oratory, was messing it up all on his own.
    Soon Davenport described the layout of the village. He spoke of Stonebury in almost reverential terms, characterizing it as
     the epitome of a rural world that was vanishing. The sort of place where you’d half expect the Mayor of Caster-bridge to bump
     into the cast of the
Archers
and have a chummy discussion about the price of turnips.
    The ancient part of the village was entirely surrounded by the stones. There were three concentric circles of diminishing
     sizes—outer, middle and inner—culminating in a group of bluestone blocks known collectively as the Sepulchre. The other stones
     were made from granite. In local lore, they were called Sarsens.
    The village had approximately three hundred residents. The surrounding farmland, where two thousand or more people lived,
     also came under the official title of the Parish of Stonebury and extended for about five miles to all points of the compass.
     I knew that the estate of His Honour Judge Wright, Justine’s deceased father, lay somewhere nearby. He had once been the presiding
     judge in the area.
    Davenport continued, “Molly Summer’s body was found the next morning. At the place of execution. She still lay within the
     inner circle at Stonebury. The area is partially paved to make it accessible throughout the year. There were few obvious clues
     but blood covered the Sepulchre. And, of course, there was the semi-naked body.”
    I noticed a couple of the seedier members of the press take this down. No doubt it would feature in some tabloid report between
     the bare breasts and the bingo.
    Davenport was beginning to get into his stride and soon came to a topic that continued to puzzle me. “How then were the police
     pointed in the direction of Richard Kingsley?” he said. “Shortly before the body was found, there was an anonymous phone call
     to Stonebury police station. I cannot tell you the content of the call. The informant never came forward, but the police immediately
     went to the Manor, Mr. Kingsley’s residence in the village.”
    I had seen bundles of photographs of Kingsley’s Stonebury home. It was dimly lit by narrow, Gothic windows and was filled
     with strange tapestries and statues. In the hallway, where most of us would have coat-hooks, Kingsley had a row of African
     masks with hollow eyes. Of all the people I had ever met, only Richard Kingsley could have lived in such a place.
    “When the police first searched the Manor, nothing was found,” said Davenport. “No doubt Mr. Kingsley breathed a huge sigh
     of relief. But