says. "I might need to remember them." He is researching a "fact-stroke-fiction" novel about the Princess of Wales's death, and calls the group the 'Diana Centurions'. "We're the guardians of her memory", he says.

They are a motley force. Far-fetched conspiracy theories abound. One woman, Susan whispers to me, believes MI6 are trying to kill her. And none can understand why their numbers are so sparse.

"More people come when they expect something salacious", says Susan. "But usually it's only us." By comparison, queues to sit in on the 2003 Hutton Inquiry formed at dawn, and latecomers were often unable to get a seat even in the overspill rooms.

But this group of eccentrics has one very powerful member: Mohamed Fayed, whose wealth has turned what could have been a formality into a marathon set to last at least three more months.

The Harrods owner, who attends almost every day with his six bodyguards, not only fought and won a legal battle to see the inquest conducted in front of a jury

rather than in private, and hired crack QC Michael Mansfield to push his thesis that the couple were murdered by the British security services at the command of the Duke of Edinburgh, but is also paying many of the lawyers here.

As owner of the Paris Ritz, he is funding the hotel's legal team, and he is likely to be contributing to the cost of the QCs employed by the family of Henri Paul.

So far, the inquest has added little but juicy nuggets about Diana's private life to what was already concluded at the 2001 French inquest and the British police inquiry led by Lord Stevens - that the pair died because they were being driven too fast by a drunk driver.

But the hearing, which has already called some 150 witnesses and is set to cost the taxpayer at least £10m, seems unlikely to quiet the concerns of Fayed and his tiny band of fellow conspiracy theorists who have made themselves at home in the courtroom.