In Chap­ter 28, titled “The Art Thief,” we delve deep­er into the plight of Bre­itwieser, who, after being arrest­ed, is left in a bureau­crat­ic lim­bo as he awaits the approval of an inter­na­tion­al search war­rant. This time drags on, and he feels increas­ing­ly iso­lat­ed, receiv­ing only a sin­gle phone call to the French embassy, which offers no assis­tance. His emo­tion­al state dete­ri­o­rates as he awaits a let­ter from his girl­friend, Anne-Cather­ine, believ­ing that she may have over­heard some­thing cru­cial before his arrest, which inten­si­fies his sense of aban­don­ment.

After a painful­ly long wait, Inspec­tor Meier vis­its. Despite Brei­wieser’s deter­mi­na­tion to remain silent, he ulti­mate­ly suc­cumbs to pres­sure and agrees to con­fess dur­ing an inter­ro­ga­tion. He fab­ri­cates a sto­ry about his inter­est in clas­si­cal music and claims he vis­it­ed the Richard Wag­n­er Muse­um to learn more. Under ques­tion­ing, he invents an excuse to explain the absence of a train tick­et.

Bre­itwieser goes on to describe his impul­sive theft of a bugle, claim­ing it was meant as a Christ­mas gift for his moth­er, and insists he did not intend to sell it. He dis­cuss­es the details of the heist can­did­ly, even sketch­ing a lay­out of the muse­um, and main­tains that he act­ed alone with­out any weapons. As the inter­ro­ga­tion con­tin­ues, he deceit­ful­ly pro­fess­es inno­cence, stat­ing that aside from this sin­gle inci­dent, he has com­mit­ted no oth­er thefts.

After­wards, he learns that he must dis­close the loca­tion of the bugle, claim­ing it is hid­den at his mother’s house. He express­es a desire to return the instru­ment to the muse­um, hop­ing his plan will spare his fam­i­ly from legal reper­cus­sions and result in a lenient sen­tence for him­self. He sends let­ters to both Anne-Cather­ine and his moth­er, implor­ing them to assist in return­ing the bugle, albeit with­out much faith in their respons­es.

As days pass and the inter­na­tion­al search war­rant is final­ly approved, law enforce­ment arrives at his mother’s res­i­dence, led by Meier. Despite Mireille Sten­gel’s ini­tial denial and her insis­tence that her son has­n’t brought any­thing home, the offi­cers pro­ceed to search. How­ev­er, much to their dis­ap­point­ment, the attic reveals a stark emptiness—no musi­cal instru­ments or valu­able arti­facts.

The chap­ter under­scores Breitwieser’s grow­ing despair and guilt, jux­ta­posed with his attempts to manip­u­late the sit­u­a­tion, reflect­ing the com­plex­i­ties of his char­ac­ter amid the unrav­el­ing con­se­quences of his actions.