Arthur had told the stableman only that he required a plain carriage and no questions. And so the two of them rode out through the gates unmarked: Genevieve in her gray cloak, the Duke in a dark coat without cresting or trimming.
A clue from the archives had set their course. Among the seized papers, Genevieve had found a list of the Crestwood properties taken at the time of the ruin, and one had never been sold: an old townhouse on the eastern edge of the city, left empty all these years, too cramped and unfashionable for the rival who had swallowed up the rest. It had simply been shuttered and forgotten.
"My father kept his study there when we were in town," Genevieve said as the carriage rattled over the cobbles. "If he hid anything, it would be there. I cannot think why no one searched it."
"Because no one believed there was anything to find," Arthur said. "A guilty man does not leave proof of his innocence lying about. They were so certain of his crime that they never looked for the thing that would unmake it."
The townhouse rose before them at last, narrow and dark, its windows boarded, ivy crawling over the door. Arthur worked the rusted lock with a key Genevieve had carried sewn into the lining of her cloak for ten years, never daring to use it. It turned with a groan, and the door gave way to dust and shadow, and the cold breath of a house long abandoned.
Inside, sheets lay gray over the furniture like shrouds. Their lanterns threw long shapes across the walls as they climbed the creaking stairs. Genevieve moved through the dark with the sureness of memory: past the drawing room, past a child's small chamber she did not look into, to a door at the end of the upper passage—her father's study.
It was much as she remembered it, though thick with dust. The desk stood where it had always stood; the shelves still held his books. She pressed her hand flat against the cold wood of the mantle and stood a moment, and Arthur did not hurry her.
"Where would he hide it?" he asked at last, gently.
"I do not know. I was nineteen; I never knew his secrets." She turned slowly, searching the room with her eyes. "But he loved a riddle. He used to say a man's truest treasure should rest where his enemies would never stoop to look."
Arthur lifted the lantern. They searched the obvious places first: the drawers, the false backs of shelves, the lining of the chair—nothing. They tapped the walls for hollows and found only solid plaster. An hour passed, and the dust thickened in their throats, and Genevieve's hope began to thin.
It was Arthur who knelt at the hearth.