Most of the Old Bailey judges were there. Hilary Hardcastle was conspicuously absent. Swarms of dark-suited barristers stood around the reception and administrative areas on the ground floor. They told their favorite Ignatius Manly stories, each vying with the other to claim the most humiliating put-down suffered at the hands of the judge. I stood at the back, trying to recall a few lines from Tennyson. Finally, I remembered them: “For my purpose holds, to sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars until I die.” I could not remember the rest of the poem. For in my mind, I saw Mr. Justice Manly sitting in one of the gaily painted fishing boats from his painting. And there was Ignatius, tacking serenely toward his Caribbean isle. Then I realized: no one had explained how the “accident”—as they called it—had really occurred. It was said that he was found at the bottom of the stairs. But how did he get there?
