In Chap­ter 26 of “The Art Thief,” the pro­tag­o­nist, Bre­itwieser, proud­ly returns home with a four-hun­dred-year-old bugle, tri­umphant­ly dis­clos­ing the details of his styl­ish theft to Anne-Cather­ine. He recounts how he had to climb onto a radi­a­tor to access the sealed dis­play box hous­ing the bugle, using his Swiss Army knife to unscrew the front pan­el. To avert sus­pi­cion from a cashier near­by, he deft­ly hopped down a few times to cre­ate a dis­trac­tion before suc­cess­ful­ly free­ing the instru­ment.

How­ev­er, Anne-Cather­ine’s reac­tion is less than enthu­si­as­tic. She reminds him that they already pos­sess a supe­ri­or bugle, a theft they com­mit­ted togeth­er in Ger­many. The sit­u­a­tion esca­lates when she ques­tions whether he wore gloves, empha­siz­ing her two strict rules about theft. Real­iz­ing he had bro­ken the sec­ond rule—stealing from the Richard Wag­n­er Muse­um in Lucerne, the very city where they were pre­vi­ous­ly apprehended—Breitwieser feels the weight of impend­ing trou­ble. Her anger is pal­pa­ble, and she fears for their future, as his fin­ger­prints are now linked to anoth­er crime scene.

In a des­per­ate attempt to make amends, Bre­itwieser offers to erase his fin­ger­prints, but Anne-Cather­ine insists it’s too dan­ger­ous. Instead, she plans to han­dle it the next morn­ing, and he reluc­tant­ly agrees to dri­ve her to the muse­um.

As they approach the muse­um, their mood is tense and silent, but upon arrival at the pic­turesque Wag­n­er Muse­um, Bre­itwieser’s spir­its revive tem­porar­i­ly. Anne-Cather­ine enters to take care of the fin­ger­prints, instruct­ing him to stay in the car. How­ev­er, he decides to take a short walk, hop­ing to recon­nect with her emo­tion­al­ly.

While wait­ing out­side, he observes her move­ments through the win­dows, enrap­tured by her pres­ence. Sud­den­ly, Anne-Cather­ine rush­es toward him look­ing anx­ious and ner­vous, which rais­es his con­cerns. The unex­pect­ed arrival of two police offi­cers shat­ters his moment of hope. Despite his lack of stolen goods, he is hand­cuffed as Anne-Cather­ine watch­es in alarm from a dis­tance, and he is tak­en away, leav­ing their rela­tion­ship in a pre­car­i­ous posi­tion.