INVESTIGATORS are seeking clues in the music of the man found unable to speak but with the talent of a piano virtuoso.

The musician, whose photograph was being broadcast around the world yesterday, has a repertoire ranging from Tchaikovsky to the Beatles but has not uttered a word since being found last month. Staff at the National Missing Persons Helpline and West Kent NHS and Social Care Trust received more than 160 calls in connection with him yesterday.

When he was found, the designer labels of his black dinner suit, sodden with seawater when he was discovered by the police on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, had been ripped out. He was dripping wet and wearing a white shirt and tie beneath an evening suit.

The man drew a picture of a grand piano. Michael Camp, his social worker, showed him a piano in the hospital chapel and the stranger delivered a stunning four-hour performance. “I cannot get within a yard of him without him becoming very anxious,” Mr Camp said. “Yet at the piano he comes alive. When we took him to the chapel piano it really was amazing. He played for several hours, non-stop, until he collapsed.”

The Rev Stephen Spencer, the hospital’s chaplain, said that he had recognised selections from the Tchaikovsky ballet Swan Lake and also a chorus of Across the Universe by Lennon and McCartney.

The man, now known as the Piano Man, was taken to the Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham after being found on Thursday, April 7. He is said to be physically healthy and has been transferred to the psychiatric unit at the Little Brook Hospital in Dartford, where he is staying in a locked, intensive-care ward, and does not have regular access to a piano. “We do not think he poses a danger to anyone else,” Mr Camp said. “He is very wary of anyone who enters the room and he will not take his eyes off you or let you get close to him, but when he plays the piano he is completely absorbed in the music, and does not seem to notice anything else.”

Mr Camp said that the pianist had written some music, but remains mute. “He has smiled occasionally and cried but the main thing that affects him is his music. He clutches that close to his chest and will not let anyone see it.”

Mr Camp said that one sample of the pianist’s compositions had been taken and shown to a music teacher. “It gave her the impression of someone who was very sad,” he said.

• Anyone who thinks they know this man should contact Teri at the National Missing Persons Helpline on 020-8392 4509

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