Chap­ter 16 of The Art Thief con­tin­ues to unrav­el the intense inves­ti­ga­tion led by Bernard Dar­ties, who is deter­mined to solve the string of art thefts that have plagued muse­ums in France and Switzer­land. In his detailed memo, Dar­ties focus­es on the theft of an ivory fig­urine from a muse­um in Brit­tany in August 1996. A wit­ness recalls see­ing a cou­ple lin­ger­ing near the dis­play short­ly before the theft, prompt­ing Dar­ties to believe that they were the cul­prits. This marks just one of many inci­dents, with a sim­i­lar duo sus­pect­ed of steal­ing a silk-embroi­dered tapes­try in anoth­er town. Dar­ties, who has spent a decade in antiter­ror­ism before tak­ing on the task of inves­ti­gat­ing art crimes, begins to per­ceive a pat­tern form­ing. He believes the thieves are not typ­i­cal crim­i­nals, but rather indi­vid­u­als with a cul­tured back­ground, pos­si­bly aca­d­e­mics or art pro­fes­sion­als, who pos­sess a refined under­stand­ing of art and its val­ue. Their exper­tise and knowl­edge make their crimes more intri­cate and their arrest far more chal­leng­ing.

A sig­nif­i­cant case in Darties’s inves­ti­ga­tion is the theft of a por­trait by Corneille de Lyon, a well-known artist who worked under King François I. The por­trait, paint­ed in the ear­ly 1500s, depict­ed the king’s daugh­ter, Madeleine de France. Known for her del­i­cate health, Madeleine trag­i­cal­ly passed away at the age of six­teen, just one year after her por­trait was com­plet­ed. The paint­ing had been on dis­play in the Muse­um of Fine Arts in Blois, a town where Madeleine had been sent for treat­ment. When the theft occurred, the muse­um had been busy with vis­i­tors, and staff were sta­tioned near­by. How­ev­er, the paint­ing van­ished with­out a trace, leav­ing only its emp­ty frame behind. This bizarre and seem­ing­ly impos­si­ble theft caught Darties’s atten­tion, as the bold­ness of the crime sug­gest­ed a lev­el of sophis­ti­ca­tion that could not be over­looked.

The theft of the por­trait marks a sig­nif­i­cant turn­ing point in Darties’s inves­ti­ga­tion. With lit­tle to go on, Dar­ties refrains from mak­ing the details pub­lic, fear­ing that it could give the thieves a heads-up and allow them to hide the stolen art­work. Mean­while, unbe­knownst to Dar­ties, anoth­er detec­tive, Alexan­dre Von der Müh­ll, is also work­ing on sim­i­lar cas­es, lead­ing to a col­lab­o­ra­tion between the two. The thieves’ meth­ods are too cal­cu­lat­ed and well-orga­nized for Dar­ties to dis­miss them as oppor­tunis­tic crim­i­nals. He begins to real­ize that these indi­vid­u­als view their heists as an exten­sion of their pas­sion for art, rather than just mere theft. Their metic­u­lous plan­ning and exe­cu­tion sug­gest that they pos­sess not just a crim­i­nal mind, but a deep appre­ci­a­tion for the objects they are tak­ing. Dar­ties becomes more deter­mined to catch them, know­ing that it’s not only their skill as crim­i­nals but also their dis­re­gard for the his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance of the pieces they steal that makes them even more dan­ger­ous.

As the inves­ti­ga­tion grows, more reports of thefts from var­i­ous muse­ums across France and Switzer­land sur­face, rein­forc­ing Darties’s sus­pi­cion that the same cou­ple is behind these heists. These crimes are no longer iso­lat­ed inci­dents, and Dar­ties believes that the per­pe­tra­tors are oper­at­ing on a much larg­er scale. This real­iza­tion push­es law enforce­ment agen­cies in both coun­tries to coop­er­ate, exchang­ing infor­ma­tion and piec­ing togeth­er evi­dence. Darties’s pri­ma­ry chal­lenge now is to track down the cou­ple before they com­mit any more thefts. He knows that the longer they remain free, the more valu­able and irre­place­able works of art will be lost. Dar­ties remains relent­less in his pur­suit, care­ful­ly ana­lyz­ing every lead and every poten­tial sus­pect. Despite the com­plex­i­ties of the case, he holds on to the belief that the thieves will even­tu­al­ly make a mis­take that will lead to their cap­ture. As the inves­ti­ga­tion inten­si­fies, Darties’s focus sharp­ens, and the stakes grow high­er for both the crim­i­nals and the law enforce­ment offi­cers try­ing to catch them.