again, even in that case, you must bear in mind that Lord Pharanx also
told her in his note, and you must recognise the possibility of the
absence of evil intention on the part of the son. Indeed, I may go
further and show you that in all but every instance in which his
actions are in themselves _outré_, suspicious, they are rendered, not
less _outré_, but less suspicious, by the fact that Lord Pharanx
himself knew of them, shared in them. There was the cruel barbing of
that balcony window; about it the crudest thinker would argue thus to
himself: "Randolph practically incites Maude Cibras to murder his
father on the 5th, and on the 6th he has that window so altered in
order that, should she act on his suggestion, she will be caught on
attempting to leave the room, while he himself, the actual culprit
being discovered _en flagrant délit_, will escape every shadow of
suspicion." But, on the other hand, we know that the alteration was
made with Lord Pharanx's consent, most likely on his initiative--for he
leaves his favoured room during a whole day for that very purpose. So
with the letter to Cibras on the 8th--Randolph despatches it, but the
earl writes it. So with the disposal of the jewels in the apartment on
the 9th. There had been some burglaries in the neighbourhood, and the
suspicion at once arises in the mind of the crude reasoner: Could
Randolph--finding now that Cibras has "left the country," that, in
fact, the tool he had expected to serve his ends has failed him--could
he have thus brought those jewels there, and thus warned the servants
of their presence, in the hope that the intelligence might so get
abroad and lead to a burglary, in the course of which his father might
lose his life? There are evidences, you know, tending to show that the
burglary did actually at last take place, and the suspicion is, in view
of that, by no means unreasonable. And yet, militating against it, is
our knowledge that it was Lord Pharanx who "_chose_" to gather the
jewels round him; that it was in his presence that Randolph drew the