“Loneliness breeds weakness and curiosity,” he replied sadly. “And I’m afraid that I have been particularly lonely.”

“So what was in it?” She found the old man’s embarrassment charming, but she’d have ripped it open in a second if she’d have been in his place. No reason for shame there.

He thought for a moment, and then rose again from his chair. He disappeared into what must have been the bedroom, and then returned less than a minute later with a thick, mangled envelope. “I tried to re-wrap it,” he confessed, “but I’m afraid I made something of a mess.”

The envelope was a large one, more suitable to construction blueprints than a letter. He handled the package gently, with reverence, almost, as he placed it onto the table between them. When Felicia reached toward it, he shooed her hands away.

“Please,” he said curtly. “Allow me to do this.”

She folded her hands on her lap.

The old man wiped his hands aggressively with a napkin, and then carefully slid the contents into the daylight.

Kaminski leaned closer. She saw a stack of papers. Her first impression was that it was very old—yellow with the kinds of marks that could only be made with an old style ink pen. As more of the contents were revealed, she squinted and leaned even closer. “It’s a musical score,” she said, recognizing the rows of staves.

Nowakowski allowed himself a conspiratorial smile. “Much more than that,” he said. He gently placed it on top of the envelope and turned it so that she could better read his treasure.

My God. Could it be what she thought? There was no mistaking the long runs of sixteenth notes and the other musical notations, but as exotic as they looked written by hand, her eyes were drawn to the written signature at the top. In her circles, there was no more famous a signature.

“Mozart?” she gasped.

“An original,” he beamed. “Or at least I think it is.”

She didn’t know what to say. “It must be worth a fortune.”

“Three fortunes,” he corrected. “Priceless, I would think. It’s clearly a piano concerto, but I’ve searched the Koechel Catalogue and this isn’t there. I think this is an undiscovered work.”

She recognized the Koechel Catalogue as the internationally recognized indexer of Mozart’s myriad compositions. If Signor Abe was right, then there truly was no way to estimate the value of the manuscript. “This is fabulous,” she said. “But I don’t understand why it frightened Uncle Henryk. This could have answered all of his wildest dreams. Honestly, this is the kind of discovery that he would have given anything to make. Why would he keep it a secret? Why would he send it away?”

“All very good questions,” Nowakowski agreed. “But I have an even bigger one.”