Conrad Black: Do I look worried to you?

That's what the expression on Conrad Black's face says at every party, every book launch and every speech he has given in his home town of Toronto. Why, the night before he was charged with stealing £47m where did we find the disgraced newspaper tycoon? At a media party, of course, handing out lawsuits of his own

Apparently without a care in the world, Lord Black charged manfully into the crowd at a glitzy black-tie banquet in Toronto, held to mark the 100th anniversary of Maclean's, the Canadian news magazine, on which his glamorous wife, Barbara Amiel, is a columnist. "That evening, his mood was very up," recalled his friend and colleague, John Fraser, a former editor in Lord Black's once sprawling publishing empire.

All the more up, perhaps, because among the gala guests, who included the Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall, lurked Peter Newman, whose 2004 autobiography accused him of "a wide range of criminal acts spanning many years". As Mr Newman entered the hall, one of Lord Black's ever-expanding team of legal minions picked him out and served him with a C$2m libel suit.

The brassy, spiteful manoeuvre was typical of a man who, like one of his heroes, Napoleon, revels in waging war on all fronts and seems determined not to let his own morass prevent him from picking new fights. Even as he and Ms Amiel smiled and posed for photographers, Lord Black knew he was about to be indicted in Chicago on fraud-related charges.

When his former lieutenant, David Radler, pleaded guilty to similar charges in September and received the promise of a modest 29-month prison term in return for co-operation, it became all but inevitable. Lord Black's pose in the days and weeks before his indictment led some wags to conclude that - like Napoleon towards the end, betwixt Elba and final crushing defeat at Waterloo - he is in a state of denial.

They point to an appearance at a Toronto college, where he outlined imminent plans for a glittering return to the centre stage of world journalism. Robert Fulford, one of Lord Black's audience at Massey College, was astonished. "You could not see the gigantic burden on his shoulders," he said. "He viewed these other things as technicalities."

Jacquie McNish, author ofThe Fall of Conrad Black, says the Blacks' act is more chutzpah than denial. "The more the rumours spread [of his indictment] the more determined he and Barbara became to put on a good face," she says. "He attended every book party and media party, knowing he'd be asked about the investigation, and he would always say 'they have nothing on me'.

"He wasn't in denial. He really believes he is innocent and that he will prevail." Sinclair Stewart, Ms McNish's co-author, says: "There's a spirit of defiance here, but some believe there is bewilderment as well."

Lord Black will not have long to wait to start proving his innocence. The US attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has said he expects him to appear voluntarily in a US District Court in Chicago on Tuesday to hear the criminal fraud charges against him. Lord Black's lawyer repeated that his client was "confident that if given a full opportunity to defend himself, he will be found innocent".

Friends agree that he genuinely believes himself the victim of a virulent strain of corporate political correctness. "Zealots", he called his critics, months before he was pushed out as Hollinger International's chief executive, and accused of taking millions of dollars in unauthorised payments from the company to fund a lifestyle of jets, parties and lavish homes, not to mention his wife's impressive collection of furs. If some trace his downfall to a taste for almost ancien régime luxury, inspired by his wife, Ms McNish disagrees. The boy whose appetite for flummery was influenced by watching the Queen's coronation in London aged eight needed no outside stimulation, she says. "He always valued appearance more than anything".

The irony, she adds, is that the weakness for old-fashioned pageantry, which led Lord Black to tear up his Canadian passport in 2001 in order to don ermine robes in the House of Lords, may prove his undoing. "He'd be in a better position to resist extradition as a Canadian citizen than he is now," she says.

Lord Black has been under legal assault for two years now, first from angry shareholders, then Hollinger itself, which accused him and his associates of, in effect, looting the company. Now, most seriously, he is under assault from Mr Fitzgerald, the same fearless, plain-spoken US prosecutor whose recent indictment for perjury served on Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to the US Vice-President Dick Cheney, sent tremors of fear through the White House.

The charges seem appropriate for a man described by one media wag as "more 19th-century European count than 21st-century tycoon". He is accused of spending $1.5m in 1999 of Hollinger money on his apartment in Park Avenue, Manhattan, partly to create extra space for servants. Another charge relates to using Hollinger's jet to have himself and Ms Amiel flown to a holiday on the island of Bora Bora - without telling the audit committee. The $40,000 of Hollinger money spent on Ms Amiel's birthday party at La Grenouille restaurant in New York is another expense that, according to the indictment, "had little if any business purpose".

According to those who know him, the couple are increasingly lonely figures, shunned by the celebrities and royal personalities they had assiduously courted. Canadians smiled wryly after they returned to his once-despised native land last year, having promised "never to set foot in London again". The 11-bedroom Kensington home is for sale. In September, the lavish Manhattan flat was sold, but the $8.9m raised was seized by the FBI. Lord Black is suing the US government for the money. Last year, he had to mortgage his Toronto home. The sales are one sign of the strain imposed by legal bills. The services of Gregory Craig, who defended Bill Clinton as President against impeachment, do not come cheap. Lord Black's legal bills could run to around C$1m a month.

Ms Amiel put a light touch on the end of the couple's golden era in an August edition of The Spectator, one of many magazines her husband once owned.

Echoingmany dethroned and exiled royals, who passed from palaces to life in Swiss hotels, she wrote: "I've taken to calling myself Lady Black of no-fixed abode."