The display case that first grabs his attention, the one that sets the whole heist in motion, does not exhibit artwork he likes. Medieval items sometimes feel judgmental and pious to him. What catches his eye, as he’s rambling with Anne-Catherine toward the Renaissance rooms in the vast Art & History Museum in Brussels, is the way the objects in this case are arranged.
It appears as if someone has already been stealing, recently and sloppily, the thief not bothering to redistribute the remaining pieces so the display might look normal to guards passing by. Then Breitwieser notices that an index card has been creased in half and placed like a little tent in the exhibit. Leaning in, he reads the note printed on the card. It says, in French, OBJECTS REMOVED FOR STUDY. Nothing has been stolen, he realizes. And he reaches for his Swiss Army knife.
The next display case to grab him, a few rooms later, glints with Breitwieser’s second-favorite material, according to what he calls his “personal passion rankings” of artistic mediums. First is oil paint. Third is ivory. Silver gets the silver, but he prefers a specific sort. In southern Germany in the late sixteenth century, around the austere Protestant towns of Augsburg and Nuremberg, a frenetic competition seemed to erupt between master silversmiths to see who could create the most exuberantly over-the-top work. Each new design for a couple of decades appeared to up the ante. They were the Fabergé eggs of their time, coveted by royal families across Europe, and are now among the more valuable of all silverworks.
Gathered in one large case are more than a dozen of these treasures—chalices, goblets, and tankards crawling with dragons and angels and devils. In the middle of the display, raised on a stand, is a spectacular warship, likely meant to be the centerpiece of a banquet table, silver sails billowing, silver soldiers on the silver deck firing silver cannons. Every piece in the case is thrillingly attic-worthy.
There’s a camera in the room whose vision, he determines, fades just shy of the display case, though he must be careful where he walks. The interval between guard visits allows time to work. His challenge is with the case itself. His usual tricks—levering the access panel, the silicone slice—will not provide a big enough gap for any of the silverworks. He needs to slide the door fully open, but it is bolted with a modern lock, virtually unpickable.
Breitwieser had recently worked a stint at the French big-box hardware store chain Lapeyre, where he was assigned, serendipitously, to the doors and locks department. There he learned that a significant percentage of locks have been improperly installed, including the one in this display case. He places an end of his Swiss Army knife against the lock and smacks the other end sharply with his palm. The entire cylinder pops from its housing and tumbles into the display, leaving behind a cleanly drilled hole in the display-case door.
The grand prize is the warship, but it’s a large showpiece item far from an exit. Better to focus on the drinking vessels. The silversmiths’ competition had coincided with the age of exploration in Europe, and the most aesthetically dizzying pieces to him are the ones that had incorporated newly arrived wonders, like ostrich eggs or coconuts. Best of all, to Breitwieser, are the chalices in which the wine flows from a nautilus shell, human imagination mated with natural geometric perfection. Breitwieser signals for Anne-Catherine to leave her lookout post at the doorway and join him. They gaze into the case. He can’t decide, he says, which of the two nautilus creations to bring home.
“Take both,” says Anne-Catherine. She offers her purse. Silver is high on her passion list too, and for these masterworks she loosens her size limits. Breitwieser glides one nautilus chalice into her bag and the other beneath his jacket, and with room to spare he takes a coconut tankard too. He pulls from his pocket the only item he’d stolen from the initial display case, the OBJECTS REMOVED FOR STUDY sign. He sets the sign down amid the remaining silver, slides the door closed, and reinserts the lock, which he’s also grabbed from the display, in the hole.
They’re at the car when he realizes that he’s forgotten the lid to the coconut cup. Merde. Missing parts, or signs of restoration, are bitterly distasteful to him. The items in their collection must be wholly original and complete. Anne-Catherine knows that her boyfriend will never be able to fully enjoy the coconut piece as is. It doesn’t matter that they’ve just escaped the museum. She removes one of her earrings and heads back. Breitwieser follows her. Anne-Catherine approaches a security guard at the entrance and says she’s lost an earring and has a feeling she knows where it is. The couple is permitted back in. They return to the case and take the stein’s lid, and while they’re at it, two more goblets as well.
During the rambling drive back to France, he devises a plan. They can be chameleons, he says, and don’t have to change that much to be different. For the next two weeks, he does not shave. Anne-Catherine alters her hairstyle. The day her vacation begins, Breitwieser drives six hours again, France to Germany to Luxembourg to Belgium. They each put on a pair of eyeglasses with round frames and nonprescription lenses and enter the Art & History Museum for their second visit.
The OBJECTS REMOVED sign is still there. A bent index card is the most effective art-thieving tool he has ever used. Confident, Breitwieser snares the warship. He’d been thinking of it incessantly. He fits the silver ship, the size of a birthday balloon and nearly as delicate, into Anne-Catherine’s bag. Her purse appears bloated. Breitwieser also removes a two-foot-tall chalice and feeds it into the left sleeve of his coat, forcing him to walk unnaturally, his arm swinging stiffly like a soldier’s.