[174] G. P. B. No. 40. Father Gerard (p. 142) says that we learn on the unimpeachable testimony of Mrs. Whynniard, the landlady, that Fawkes not only paid the last instalment of rent on Sunday, November 3, but on the following day, the day immediately preceding the intended explosion, had carpenters and other work folk in the house for mending and repairing thereof (G. P. B. No. 39). “To say nothing of the wonderful honesty of paying rent under the circumstances, what was the sense of putting a house in repair upon Monday, which on Tuesday was to be blown to atoms?” The rent having fallen due at Michaelmas, is it not probable that it was paid in November to avoid legal proceedings, which might at least have drawn attention to the occupier of the house. As to the rest, the ‘unimpeachable testimony’ is that—not of Mrs. Whynniard, but of Roger James (G. P. B. No. 40), who says that the carpenter came in about Midsummer, not on November 4.
[175] Gerard, p. 69.
[176] G. P. B. No. 101.
[177] See p. 108.
[178] G. P. B. No. 39.
[179] Gerard, p. 87.
[180] Here is another ‘discrepancy,’ which Father Gerard has not noticed. As the ‘cellar’ was not taken till a little before Easter, Percy could not make a door into it about the middle of Lent. My solution is, that in his second examination, on November 6th, Fawkes was trying to conceal the existence of the mine, in order that he might not betray the miners, and therefore antedated the making of the door. See p. 25.
[181] Gerard, p. 88.
[182] Gerard, p. 89.
[183] Gerard, p. 74.