When the prestigious Italian Bellini Foundation arrives at the Swan River Festival of Voices with a previously unknown Vivaldi manuscript, Dr Alex Moreton notices three things before the opening reception is half over.

The provenance chain leads from a Swiss estate sale, through a Zurich auction house, through eighteen months of preliminary authentication in Rome, and arrives in Perth wearing the imprimatur of the Bellini Foundation

By the following morning, the manuscript was gone. The performing pianist is at the foot of a staircase with a concussion and a fractured wrist. And the access log for the music building's secure storage room points to someone who should not have had the code..