‘They were high-minded people.’ Elisabeth refilled the cups. ‘Vati always said that Clara’s standards were unutterably lofty, and that most remarkably of all, she could keep to them. Why would she not marry Brahms? Schumann was dead; why must she devote herself solely to his memory? Brahms loved her and he adored the children. Eugenie once wrote about how he used to perform acrobatics on the banisters to make them laugh.’

It struck Jelly that the spirit messages had given no indication that Schumann’s own family might raise objections. And though there was an expression of regret supposedly from Onkel Jo himself, suggesting that perhaps his original judgement of the concerto had been too harsh, not a single letter in the glass game, not so much as a ‘yes’ or ‘no’, came in purporting to be from either Brahms or Clara.

‘You don’t remember anything about the concerto? Nothing your father might have said to you, or to Harold? If there’s anything at all that could counter her… ’

‘Not that I can think of,’ said the mystified Elisabeth.

Jelly had written to Eugenie in great hope and in a spirit rich with wit and enthusiasm, imagining her as a freethinking and enlightened woman. Not as someone who might send her this.

‘She’s certainly free-thinking,’ Elisabeth confirmed. ‘She had a relationship with another woman for over 50 years. That takes courage.’

‘Who was she? The – friend?’

‘A singer. Marie Fillunger, apparently an excellent musician, a friend of Brahms and devoted to Eugenie. Clara was remarkably accepting. She of all people knew true love when she saw it.’

Jelly stared at Eugenie’s handwriting. ‘I know we’re talking about some of the finest musicians who ever lived… but how can we be sure they were right?’

‘Harold would have ways to look at that,’ Elisabeth remarked. ‘He would probably say that until we can be sure we have every single fact in place, nothing is demonstrably true. Until all the components are assembled, every suggestion can only be partially right and partially wrong.’

‘That’s exactly it,’ Jelly said, eager. ‘We don’t have all the components for the truth, and we can’t have them until we have the concerto itself! I can’t bear it that Erik has seen the manuscript, but he can’t read it. He can’t tell me the first thing about the music.’

Elisabeth cast a shrewd eye over her het-up guest. ‘You’re quite flushed, Jelly. I hope this business isn’t coming to mean more to you than is strictly necessary?’

‘What gets to me is that the only person I know who’s seen it is him. And I don’t understand how these spirit messages are showing us one thing, but what happens is something else. I even think I am going a little mad.’

‘Presumably you haven’t told Eugenie that you first heard of this work through messages from her father in the beyond?’