Dr Adolf Koch’s clinic

Dr Adolf Koch’s clinic in Berne is the medical setting that links Charlotte Blacklock’s treatment for goitre with Rudi Scherz’s past as an orderly. That connection explains Rudi’s recognition of Charlotte in England and reveals that her story about his family and Montreux was an invention to conceal the real source of their acquaintance.

Medical Background

The clinic was run by Dr Adolf Koch, described by Craddock as a world-famous specialist in operations for goitre. Charlotte had gone there to have her goitre removed; Rudi had worked there as one of the orderlies. The passage supplies no further details of the clinic’s facilities or operation, but establishes it as the point at which their histories crossed before either encountered the other in England.

The Recognition in England

After coming to England, Rudi recognized Charlotte at a hotel as a former patient of the clinic. He spoke to her on the spur of the moment. Craddock suggests that, had Rudi paused to think, he might have refrained: he had left the clinic under a cloud, although this had happened some time after Charlotte’s treatment. Charlotte therefore would not have known about the circumstances of his departure.

The Invented Explanation

When asked whether Rudi had told Charlotte about Montreux and his father being a hotel proprietor, Craddock rejects that account. Charlotte made it up to explain why Rudi had spoken to her. The revelation distinguishes the true basis of the encounter—their prior connection at Koch’s clinic—from the cover story Charlotte supplied, making the clinic a small but decisive piece of the investigation’s reconstruction of their relationship.