Chapter III.—Birds of PreyThe proprietress of the Institute of Perfect Health, Madame Bertha de Roche, was a tall woman of commanding presence. As a girl she had been decidedly pretty and, now, approaching her forty-third year, was considered by no means ill-favoured by those who were admirers of her type of coarse and rather masculine beauty. She had big blue eyes which seared you through and through, a well-developed nose, a big mouth which a physiognomist would have described as being both ruthless and cruel, and a strong, determined chin. Altogether she was not a woman whom a timid person would care to cross.
To her patients—she would never call them clients—she made out she was of Swiss nationality and came from Zurich, but in truth she was of German-Jewish birth, born in Stuttgart a
