Actually, those wooden baskets can be found at multiple locations throughout the game. They all bear the same number, 167 as you noticed

I had exactly the same reaction as you, trying that as a code in the art dealer mansion, but let's be real here : it would have been EXTREMELY farstretched to put the safe code on a laundry basket that could have been anywhere. Talk about security. And, after all, Arkane did a good job at making a credible world here. The code being just displayed there would not have been making any sense

I hope I wouldn't even have to load the Golden Cat map, though. That would have been very fun. Well there still was Emily to find, but yet...