me.

The second story had a plot, quantities of plot, nothing but plot. It
was to have been written in collaboration with a very great novelist,
who, as far as we went, confined himself to making objections. This
novel was stopped (not that my friend would ever have gone on) by "Called
Back," which anticipated part of the idea. The story was entitled "Where
is Rose?" and the motto was--

"_Rosa quo locorum_
_Sera moratur_."

The characters were--(1) Rose, a young lady of quality. (2) The Russian
Princess, her friend (need I add that, to meet a public demand, _her_
name was Vera?). (3) Young man engaged to Rose. (4) Charles, his
friend. (5) An enterprising person named "The Whiteley of Crime," the
universal Provider of Iniquity. In fact, he anticipated Sir Arthur
Doyle's Professor Moriarty. The rest were detectives, old ladies, mob,
and a wealthy young Colonial larrikin. Neither my friend nor I was fond
of describing love scenes, so we made the heroine disappear in the second
chapter, and she never turned up again till chapter the last. After
playing in a comedy at the house of an earl, Rosa and Vera entered her
brougham. Soon afterwards the brougham drew up, _empty_, at Rose's own
door. Where _was_ Rose? Traces of her were found, of all places, in the
Haunted House in Berkeley Square, which is not haunted any longer. After
that Rose was long sought in vain.

This, briefly, is what had occurred. A Russian detective "wanted" Vera,
who, to be sure, was a Nihilist. To catch Vera he made an alliance with
"The Whiteley of Crime." He was a man who would destroy a parish
register, or forge a will, or crack a crib, or break up a Pro-Boer
meeting, or burn a house, or kidnap a rightful heir, or manage a
personation, or issue amateur bank-notes, or what you please. Thinking
to kill two birds with one stone, he carried off Rose for her diamonds
and Vera for his friend, the Muscovite police official, lodging them both
in the Haunted House. But there he and the Russian came to blows, and,
in the confusion, Vera made her escape, while Rose was conveyed, _as
Vera_, to Siberia. Not knowing how to dispose of her, the Russian police
consigned her to a nunnery at the mouth of the Obi. Her lover, in a
yacht, found her hiding-place, and got a friendly nun to give her some
narcotic known to the Samoyeds. It was the old _truc_ of the Friar in
"Romeo and Juliet." At the mouth of the Obi they do not bury the d