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Oh, cry fie and fray it all! You don't have time for any more delays, false starts or half-measures. Quite honestly, you don't have time for much of anything at this point. Spurring yourself on with that thought, you set the decanter between your feet as you did earlier, then you fish out the snap-sparker and one of your candles. Hoping and praying that you haven't overlooked anything, you steady yourself and light the damned thing. Immediately, the nebulous shapes that you only knew to be a desk because you had been in the gallery earlier are brought into stark relief. As you find yourself standing on the custom side of the desk, you go to walk around it to the clerk side - but you stop yourself straight-away, on account of the decanter between your feet.
Thinking quickly, you pluck the stopper of the decanter out, put it in your pocket, then firmly stuff the candle into the mouth of the vessel. Feeling clever for the first time in ... you don't even know how long, you take up the 'stick-decanter, and walk around to the clerk side of the desk. Your heart nearly skips a beat when you see that every single drawer has a lock - but then it does actually skip a beat when you see that in the lock for the lap-drawer, a key has been left behind, festooned with a pristine white tassel double, if not treble its own size. You look around the gallery, wondering at this inexplicable oversight, but you are light blind from the nude flame. Outside of the small island of light around the stick, the rest of the space is just as inscrutable as it was before you lit it. You go to set the 'stick-decanter down on the clerk's chair, then you think better of it, and put it on a safe portion of floor instead. Then you use the key to rifle your way through the entire desk. There are envelopes waiting for letters, and sheets of paper in every size and grade imaginable. There are six different pairs of pens, each pair with a different type of tip. There are even sticks of wax and ribbons.
What there isn't is a Family Patent. Neither a Personal nor a Master. In fact, there isn't any sort documentation at all. No ledgers, no binders, no bills, no writs, not affirmations, no permit-orders, no postings of any kind. Not even receipts, personal notes or idle drawings. All the paper that you can lay eyes on is virginal, unspoiled by ink. However, just as you are starting to wonder if this well is dry, you come to the last bottom drawer - the one to the left of the clerk as they sit at the desk - and you find that you cannot open it with the key. Immediately, you look towards the decanter - but these cheap locks have thoroughfare-style keyways. When you perform an Ice Lockpick, water will be pouring out on both sides of the lock; and considering that the swag you are after is made of paper ... oh, Pattern's Perdition! You don't want to water-log the damned desk, but unless you find a key that works, you don't see any other non-destructive way in.
