Torch in the Net
Cases unlock in order, like levels. This is case 192 of 200.
Vienna, Sunday, 11 May 2003, 9:00 am. In a large art museum on the RingstrasseRingstrasse Grand boulevard that circles the old centre of Vienna, lined with imperial-era museums and palaces., its facade covered in renovation scaffolding, curator Hedwig Lanz found room 37 open to the wind at 8:20 am.
The first-floor window was broken, the scaffold netting cut and the central display case shattered. The Mermaid Salt Cellar, of gold and enamel, from 1543, valued at 50 million euros, was gone.
The basement panel logged an alarm in room 37 at 3:55 am. At 3:56 someone reset it, and nobody went upstairs.
Three people had the key, the code or the ladder to this room. One of them knows where the salt cellar is.
Art gallery of a Vienna museum in 2003, morning, with the central display case shattered and empty.
Suspects
Gernot PfeilerTechnician at the company that maintains the museum alarm, 47
Wilma StrasserNight guard at the museum, who reset the alarm, 56
Radko MrázekSite foreman of the firm renovating the facade, 52
The real case
The Cellini Salt Cellar theft
Vienna, Austria, 2003
Read the real case