Note 272 — Chapter VI

Father Greenway expresses his utter disbelief in the incident of the chamberlain's visit:[272] "To speak my own mind," he writes, "I do not see in this portion of the story any sort of probability." He adds another remark of great importance. If the Lord Chamberlain,—and, we may add, Sir T. Knyvet,—could get into the cellar without the assistance of Faukes, to say nothing of the "other door" which makes its appearance in Cecil's first version, there is an end of the secret and hidden nature of the place, and some one else must have had a key. How, then, about the months during which the powder had been lying in it; during much of which time it had been, apparently, left to take care of itself? Did no man ever enter and inspect it before?