Arthur Conan Doyle was only once in Barcelona. It was an ephemeral visit, in 1909, of only one day, the duration of the stopover that the ship on which he was traveling made in the Catalan capital as part of a tourist tour of Spain, Portugal, and Morocco by the British writer. Those 24 hours were enough, however, for Doyle to confirm the fascination that his immortal literary detective Sherlock Holmes aroused among Barcelonans.
During his visit, he had the opportunity to meet his translator in Catalonia, Salvador Vilaregut, was received by the chief of police of Barcelona, and was given a tour of the city's main monuments. He also learned that the Teatre Principal had recently premiered the play El detective Sherlock Holmes.
The most famous private investigator in history had already made an impact on Barcelona society for some time. His adventures were published in Catalan in the weekly Literatura sensacional and even Inspector Charles Arrow of Scotland Yard, hired in 1907 by the Catalan authorities to investigate terrorist attacks attributed to anarchist groups, had been nicknamed Sherlock. This is how L'Esquella de la Torratxa caricatured him.
Doyle only made Barcelona appear in a single one of the adventures starring the detective, what is called the canon, in contrast to the pastiches, which are the thousands of versions signed by other authors. It was in the one titled The Wisteria Lodge, in which he explains that the city was one of the destinations of Juan Murillo, a cruel former Latin American dictator who traveled the world with false identities to evade those who wished to end him as revenge for his excesses while governing the fictional republic of San Pedro.
The city only appears in one novel by Arthur Conan Doyle, titled The Wisteria Lodge, which narrates the escapes of a cruel former Latin American dictator around the worldThe fascination with Sherlock Holmes has endured in Barcelona to this day.I myself was trapped by the character since in my adolescence I read all the adventures in a marathon week. The last chapter has been written by Teatre Apolo, which for itsreopeninghas chosen the musicalWho killed Sherlock Holmes?, with singer Daniel Diges in the role of the detective.Among the audience that will undoubtedly come to see the production are the members of the Holmes Circle, an association that cultivates the study of Doyle's work, especially that starring the investigator from Baker Street 221B.
The Circle organizes periodic activities, always related to the Sherlockian cult, such as conferences, trips, and screenings of films and television series, among others. In October 2010, it organized an international meeting that brought together followers of the detective from all over Spain, France, Italy, and the United States for three days. They named it The No Fog Countries Meeting, as a Latin alternative to the numerous meetings that take place in the Anglo-Saxon world.
Barcelona thus became the capital of the Sherlockian world for three days, and this was reported by the media. The meeting was held in a wonderful place, the Arús Public Library, a study center specializing in the labor movement and Freemasonry, which is a miracle that it has survived at 26 Passeig Sant Joan. And that is how Doyle's condition as a Freemason led to another relevant event in Barcelona's Holmesian curriculum.
Joan Proubasta, founder of the Holmes Circle and one of the world's most important collectors on the detective, reached an agreement with the historic library to deposit there the thousands of objects and publications he has accumulated over decades. Among them, a curious headboard with Holmes' effigy that he acquired in a brothel that had ceased its activity.
In short, there is a nearly century-and-a-half link between Sherlock Holmes and Barcelona without a scientific explanation as to why. It is for this reason, to fill this void, that I invite readers to discover it by applying one of the detective's maxims: "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." So there you have it, go ahead, or as Holmes would say: "The game is afoot."