Chapter 30

Summary

• Breitwieser is transferred to a jail southwest of the Swiss mountains, where he is questioned by art-crime detective Alexandre Von der Mühll.
• Von der Mühll attempts to build mutual respect with Breitwieser by relating to him as a fellow art collector and showing compassion instead of intimidation.
• Von der Mühll encourages Breitwieser to confess, stating that it will likely result in a lighter sentence, and progressively gets him to provide detailed recounts of his thefts.
• Breitwieser eventually confesses to additional thefts beyond those initially connected with him, although he only admits to what Von der Mühll first suggests.
• To protect them, Breitwieser maintains throughout his interrogations that his girlfriend Anne-Catherine and his mother both had no knowledge or involvement in his crimes.
• Once a level of trust is established, Von der Mühll confronts Breitwieser about missing paintings - these represent the highest-value items and were initially left out of the investigation.
• Breitwieser admits to stealing 69 Renaissance paintings, a declaration which Von der Mühll realizes marks one of the largest art crimes in history.
• Breitwieser claims to not know the current whereabouts of the paintings, initially saying he left them in his mother's attic. However, upon learning from Von der Mühll about a police search that turned up nothing, he is confused and worried.
• Von der Mühll arranges for Breitwieser's mother to visit her son with immunity from arrest, in the hope she can provide the location of the missing paintings.
• During the meeting, despite pleas from Breitwieser, his mother insists that there are no paintings and warns him to stick to that version of events.