stefansson-wrangel-09-18-030-002

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to be so concerned to save the reputation of the boys that he was going
to destroy certain pages so as to make it forever beyond my power to
shift blame from myself to them.

You will please remember in reading this that I am only
telling you the stories which Noice had concocted. All he said was partly
untrue and much of what he said was wholly untrue. For instance, we now
know pretty well there was nothing in the diary which would have enabled
me, even had I so desired, to shift any responsibility to the boys that
had previously been borne by me. What Noice seems to have been really
planning was a plausible excuse for abstracting a fairly large part of the
diary. He could then concoct as sensational a story as he wished, claim-
ing that the evidence for the sensational features was in the missing
pages which had been read by himself before they were destroyed. It was
apparently the influence of Mrs. Noice that induced Mr. Noice eventually
to return to Mr. Knight all the missing pages except Nos. 33-42, inclusive,
of the second volume of Lorne's diary. It was at this point Noice pub-
lished his second story in the New York World and other newspapers. I am
enclosing a clipping.

You will note from this clipping that Noice now has still
another version about the missing pages. First, he told Lomen nothing about
any pages having been torn out by Ada or about any intention by himself to
tear out pages. Next he told Taylor that he intended to tear out some pages
to conceal from newspaper men certain things which outhg to be kept con-
fidential within the records of the company. Again he said nothing about
Ada's having torn out any pages. Thirdly, he told his friends in New York
that he intended tearing out pages, not primarily to keep the records from
the newspapers, but primarily to keep them from me to prevent my shifting
blame from myself to the boys. Once more he failed to mention any pages
having been torn out by Ada. Now in the World he has a fourth story in which
he claims that before he ever saw the diary Ada had removed ten pages. He
pretends to believe that in those ten pages was evidence of that guilt on
the part of Ada which he alleges he inferred from other records. We feel
certain not only that Ada never mutilated the diary but also that the pages
still missing do not contain the damaging information which he alleges they
must contain. We believe that their contents is probably neither harmful
nor important. Almost certainly it concerns itself with the symptoms of
Knight's illness and the progress of the disease. We are hoping that
Noice still has these pages secreted, although it is possible he has
destroyed them, his purpose in either case being to lend a semblance of
foundation for his sensational charges against Ada.

These charges against Ada are one more evidence that
Mr. Noice cannot be quite sane. He gains nothing but temporary newspaper
publicity. He hurts us, of course, but we do not believe he is actuated by
deliberate malice. He is injuring himself in the long run a great deal
more than he injures anybody else, and that no any no sane person can understand would do.

We will now try our best through Lomen to work on
Noice both as to giving back the ten pages which he says Ada has but which
we know he has, and now also Milton's diary. But please do not build up
any great hope of receiving this, for an unbalanced person, such as we
believe Noice to be, may at any time on the spur of the moment destroy