[On Hume House stationery, small sheet, Edmund's hand. Black ink, careful.]
Hume House Vanderlin Row Port Hume, December the Fourteenth, 1912.
My dear Reddick,
Thank you for your letter of the eleventh, which reached me this morning.
On the matters you raise:
The question of C.S. — I agree the sum you propose is fair and will be closed. I should like, if you see no objection, the payment to be made in two portions, with the second contingent upon his leaving the city for a place agreed between you. San Francisco was mentioned. It will serve.
On the question of the N. headings, and of whether any record should be produced in the matter of Mr. O. — I am of your view. What was not written does not need to be unwritten. I should wish the internal report, however it is finally drawn, to be silent on this point. If Mr. Fazackerley's finding carries the matter, there is no reason to trouble it with surplusage.
On the compensation schedule — I have asked Mrs. Calder to withdraw the 1908 document from the office files and to hold it at your direction. I do not wish it produced. If a figure must be named, the figure actually paid to Mrs. McC. is the figure; what the schedule proposed in the abstract is a private consideration of the Company, and need not be cited.
On my cousin — I have not been able to bring myself to write to his mother. I will go to her at the turn of the year.
There is one further thing, between us alone. A passenger, a man named D., from Pittsburgh, has written twice to the Beacon suggesting that the cabin steward's deposition be published in full. I do not know if he was aboard; I cannot find him on the manifest under that name. Would you be good enough to ascertain, by whatever route you think prudent, who he is and why he writes. I do not wish a further petition.
I remain, as ever, grateful for your counsel.
Edmund
[postscript, in smaller hand at foot:]
I have not spoken of the ship in this house since the ninth. Evangeline asks after nothing. She prays.
E.