‘It’s for four hands. I’ve been looking at it with Irene Scharrer.’ Irene was Myra’s oldest friend, a fellow former piano pupil of Tobias Matthay. ‘Rumour has it, according to Uncle Tobs, that Schumann thought this theme was being dictated to him by the spirits of Schubert and Mendelssohn. Of course, the poor man was losing his mind at the time. Brahms wrote these variations after Schumann died. Isn’t it lovely?’

The music stood open on the piano beside the violin sonata; Jelly peered over Myra’s shoulder at the notes. Extraordinary to think that Schumann himself had believed in such things. If she told Myra her own Schumann story, Myra might think that she, too, was losing her mind. Yet Jelly had seen the words forming, with her own eyes, and she knew she hadn’t pressed on the glass, and she knew she had never heard before of a violin concerto by Schumann.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘Do you think it really was dictated by spirits?’

Myra burst out laughing, then twirled into a jokey cadence that neither Schumann nor Brahms would ever have written.

*

Jelly’s letters from Dorset began to bring her some returns around the time of her birthday in late May – though not all were happy. Armed with her best hat, a sleek black suit and several layers of necklaces, she took up invitations to coffee, tea and sherry. The first of the latter was with the friendliest critic from The Times. He owned a copy of the first edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and looked up Schumann for her. ‘No mention of a violin concerto,’ he said. ‘None at all. Admittedly, this edition may be out of date. Don’t you think, though, that if there was a concerto, I’d know about it?’

Jelly thanked him and went to morning coffee with another critic – James Gambrell, whom she respected yet feared a little; in his study he adopted the stance of a tutor interviewing a student across a college desk.

‘My dear Jelly, how nice to see you… but why the devil are you looking for a missing violin concerto by Schumann? Or, indeed, any missing work by Schumann? You are surely aware of the situation vis-à-vis his suppressed compositions?’

Jelly blinked. Suppressed compositions, plural? ‘Actually, I wasn’t,’ she said, keeping her eyes wide and innocent, trying to let charm make up for her pitiful ignorance. ‘Please tell me?’

Gambrell took a long inhalation from his pipe. A number of Schumann’s late works, he explained, were unpublished, assumed ‘missing’. The truth was more awkward.