The best-selling novelist, Lord Archer, arrived at court yesterday with a "Lady in Red" - his wife, Mary.
Lady Archer (56) was wearing a bright red dress-suit with a bow at the front and matching open-toed, sling-back shoes.
Lady Archer went into the building, as she had on the first day of the Old Bailey trial, but left soon afterwards through a rear door. The couple's son, Mr William Archer (29), went into court with his father.
The colour of Lady Archer's outfit - following the Tories' general election defeat - seemed not in keeping for the wife of a former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party.
Politics also crept into the court case after the prosecution junior counsel, Mr Mark Ellison, told the jury the hearing would be delayed for at least two hours "at a conservative estimate".
The court, including Lord Archer, erupted into laughter when the judge, Mr Justice Potts, interrupted: "That's an unfortunate term . . ."
Lady Archer's presence followed yesterday's claims by Lord Archer's former secretary, Mrs Angela Peppiatt (56), that he had instructed her to buy presents for his mistress, Ms Andrina Colquhoun.
Lord Archer (61) denies four charges of perverting the course of justice, two of perjury, and one of using a false instrument in relation to his 1987 successful libel action against the Daily Star, which had accused him of sleeping with a prostitute.
His former friend, the television producer, Mr Ted Francis (67), denies perverting the course of justice by providing him with a false alibi which was subsequently not used in court.
Mrs Peppiatt, who worked for Lord Archer between 1985 and 1987, was to have resumed giving evidence for the prosecution yesterday, but the jury was later sent home while lawyers studied documents produced by her.
The secretary has told the court that Lord Archer asked her to fill in a blank diary before the 1987 libel trial.
Lord Archer denied having sex with the prostitute Monica Coghlan but resigned his unpaid Tory post in 1986. He was awarded £500,000 damages in the libel case against the newspaper.