"
She went on to explain, whilst the doctors occupied themselves with
their gruesome task, and Vivie was being persuaded to take some
nourishment, that her great grandfather had been a soldier servant
who had married a Belgian woman and settled down on the site of this
very shop a hundred years ago. He and his wife had even then
made a specialty of tea for English tourists. She, his great
grand-daughter, had after her marriage to Monsieur Trouessart
carried on the business under the old name--Walker, made to look
Flemish as Walcker.
Vivie when left alone suddenly thought of the money question. She
remembered then that before going out to look for rooms she had
transferred half the notes from their hiding-place to an inner
pocket. They were still there. But what about her luggage and her
mother's, and the remainder of the money? In her distress she wrote
to Graefin von Stachelberg. Minna came over from her hospital at half
past six in the evening. By that time the doctor had given the
necessary certificate of the cause of death, and an undertaker had
come on the scene to make his preparations.
Minna went over to the Hotel Imperial with Vivie. Appearing in her
Red Cross uniform, she was admitted, announced herself as the Graefin
von Stachelberg, and demanded to know what justification the manager
could offer for his extraordinary brutality towards these English
ladies, the result of which had been the death of the elder lady.
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