try Holmes' Continental Tours!

I've never been especially good at Geography - it was one of my worst subjects at school and there are a great many places I should probably be able to point to on a map but can't. When reading a Holmes story I rarely need geographical knowledge - Doyle (or Watson) is usually pretty precise. 'The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax' however puts my head into something of a spin.

It will embarrass me to admit out loud but, reading this story, I'd always assumed Lausanne to be a city in France - looking up details in 'The Canonical Compendium' (Clarkson, Calabash Press, 1999) I was surprised to see it in fact is in Switzerland. I suspect what's always thrown me is the mention of Montepellier (where the titular Lady is said to have fleed from) and also Holmes' disguise with which he surprises Watson - "an unshaven French ouvrier" complete with handy cudgel. (were there many such Frenchmen to be found loitering in Victorian Swiss cities? Were they always so at risk of violence that the carrying of such cudgels was necessitated? Questions for the social historians among us)

Such geographical water-muddying at least puts me in good company for even the Compendium can only state with certainty that the continental province visited in the story is -

"Rhineland ['Rhenish'], either Switzerland or Germany, those parts bordering on the Rhine river"

However, the "spa" where Carfax's luggage has been sent to is specified as the Englischer Hof in Baden, Germany. Why might we by confused by this? Because Holmes and Watson had grim cause to have visited an 'Englischer Hof' once before - the one in Switzerland, whence they had been driven by Moriarty during the events of 'The Final Problem'!

And mention of that story also reminds one that Montepllier too, the scene of Lady Carfax's initial flight, was mentioned in FINA's immediate sequel, 'The Empty House' - where, it will be remembered, it was the location where Holmes conducted lab experiments with "coal-tar derivatives" (so he says).

All this jumping about around 'the Continent' (I've never understood why it's called that) has given me a headache. If only it had been set in France, I wouldn't get that painful throbbing in my temples. I have tried to grasp it -

but do I hear you say, "Well - a very pretty hash you have made of it!"

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