Deja Voodoo grinned and shook his head at the memory. “Yes,” he said, “it was a surprise to find the formerly diminutive DibbImp dubbed Impey Biggs. I recall being disconcerted myself at that particular revelation, though for some reason I did not immediately make the connection with the Lord Peter books, despite the world in which I had established him. But I must say that in all other respects the boy had turned out far better than I had imagined. I did half-expect him to grow up a detective, the world in which I placed him being so conducive to the emergence of such. But perhaps I should not have been so surprised that he did not. In that world, as in all, such supreme ratiocinators are by necessity a tiny minority. I learned instead that young Impey had been encouraged from an early age to follow the law, and was well on in his studies when I returned to restore to him his heritage.
“It was a heritage in which, to my wonder, he had little interest. My miraculous apparition before him duly convinced him there was a mystery to his past, and to which I did, as I claimed, hold the key. But he was intent on following his chosen career path and was disinclined to have it disrupted. He therefore suggested I look him up again in another thirty years or so.
“This I did, by his timeline if not my own, subsequently rediscovering him as an accomplished, successful, knighted, and if the truth be known somewhat jaded barrister, and moreover one now closely associated with one of my favorite literary detectives. He was also at last inclined to assay something new. And so I returned to him his earliest memories, and let it be known that I would, if he wished, transport him to a universe in which his long-forgotten power might return as well. I admit to a certain apprehension regarding that last point. But a promise is a promise.
“To my relief the insanity of his infancy held little allure to him after a lifetime of steadfast, able achievement. He was, however, curious about the world of his birth, eager, even, to revisit it. The world of his upbringing had been a stodgy and repressed one, which even the relative abandon of the 1920s had done little to loosen. He was ready for a change - a vacation, as he put it. And so I brought him back here, where he soon established a new legal practice and, in his own restrained fashion, occasionally tasted a few of the creature comforts. He has commuted between his two worlds ever since, in accord with his whim and fancy. Having notoriety enough on the world of his adoption he was content to exist here, in his “home away from home,” in relative anonymity. And so he might have continued, indefinitely, had he not learned of your legal difficulties.”
Deja Voodoo, having said his piece, stopped. As the silence wore on, Dabbler realized it was up to him to speak, if anything more was to be said.
“So - what happens now?” the Barefoot One ventured.
“That, I fancy, if for you to determine,” Deja Voodoo told him. “Though I would approach Sir Impey circumspectly, if I were you. His memories of you from babyhood are not such to instill in him any great liking for you, I fancy, for all that his sense of family responsibility is an acute one.”
“I can understand that, I suppose,” Dabbler said. “My memories of him leave me a little cautious as well.”
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Thu Jun 03 23:18:17 2004
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