Lönnrot looks past her and addresses the air, as if from a pulpit. Evidently imaginary parishioners, whatever their unknown shortcomings, are preferable to investigators who make coarse jokes. "The Fire Judges, in medieval tradition, are the five men and women living on earth whose task is to reveal—literally to de-crypt —the mysterious choices of God. To unhide and demystify the divine. Like Orpheus or Prometheus, they are the gateway to the heavenly city, the spinal conduit between the mundane world and the divine one. Together, they are the place where the shadow on the wall may for an instant touch the hand of the person casting it. Or perhaps it is the other way around. Perhaps the assassin is sacred and the detective is profane." Another censorious glower. "So much depends on your angle of view."