In Chap­ter 27 of “The Art Thief,” we delve into a tense night for thief Bre­itwieser, who finds him­self impris­oned once again in a Swiss police sta­tion, echo­ing his ear­li­er arrest four years pri­or. The next day, on Novem­ber 21, 2001, a police inspec­tor named Roland Meier arrives to inter­ro­gate him. Both men share a sim­i­lar age and back­ground, con­vers­ing in their native Alsa­t­ian accents. Meier per­ceives Bre­itwieser as a mere pet­ty thief, hav­ing stud­ied his past arrest in Lucerne.

The inter­ro­ga­tion occurs in a stark, ster­ile room as Meier ques­tions Bre­itwieser about the recent theft of a his­tor­i­cal bugle from the Wag­n­er Muse­um. Bre­itwieser adamant­ly denies involve­ment, despite Meier’s calm per­sis­tence. The day of the theft had been qui­et, with few vis­i­tors. Esther Jaerg, the sole employ­ee present, dis­cov­ered the theft after a patron, donned in a dis­tinc­tive long green coat, left. After Jaerg’s call to the police, addi­tion­al details emerged when a near­by dog walk­er alert­ed author­i­ties upon see­ing a sus­pi­cious indi­vid­ual.

As evi­dence against him mounts, includ­ing fin­ger­prints and pos­si­bly video record­ings, the pres­sure on Bre­itwieser esca­lates. How­ev­er, he catch­es on to Meier’s bluff; no defin­i­tive evi­dence exists link­ing him to the crime. This gives Bre­itwieser a glim­mer of hope—if he can reach out to his accom­plice, Anne-Cather­ine, he believes they might return the stolen bugle to exon­er­ate him.

After the brief inter­ro­ga­tion, he is returned to a high-secu­ri­ty cell, where he learns he is clas­si­fied as a high-secu­ri­ty inmate and may not make calls. Meier’s ini­tial assess­ment of Bre­itwieser as a minor crim­i­nal now seems naïve, as he rec­og­nizes Breitwieser’s cun­ning dur­ing the ques­tion­ing. The pos­si­bil­i­ty of him being a ser­i­al thief looms, prompt­ing Meier to seek judi­cial approval to keep him detained and to pur­sue an inter­na­tion­al search war­rant, lead­ing to inves­ti­ga­tions in France regard­ing Bre­itwieser’s past crimes .