It took me three or four tries to express the meaning of my realization: the Baron Dupin had appropriated the form of Auguste Duponte! The Baron had tautened the muscles in his face, had weighed down the ends of his mouth, had -- for all I could say -- used some spell of magic to sharpen the very contours of his head and adjust his height. He also selected his dress like Duponte's, in the loose cut of the cloth and dull colours. He left behind the jewelry and rings with which he was formerly adorned, and smoothed the wilderness of ringlets in his hair. The Baron had subtly, using observation....remade himself into a version of Duponte. ....Whenever he saw Duponte around the streets, the Baron could hardly speak without breaking into laughter at the brilliance of his newly instituted taunt.
An abomination, a conjurer, a swindler, masquerading as a great man!
He had also -- somehow -- I vow to you -- he had also transmogrified the very timbre and pitch of his voice. To parrot with precision that of Duponte's! Even the accent was adjusted to perfection. If I had been in a dark chamber, and had been listening to a monologue by this falsifier, I would have happily addressed the fiend as though he were my accustomed and true companion.
-- Matthew Pearl, The Poe Shadow
(rather silly good fun -- he can't keep up the Victorian pastiche too well, but Sherlock Holmes split into both a moody ratiocinator and flamboyant master of disguise, and a slightly hysterical unmarried Watson, are all entertaining so far. No real women in the book, but oh well)
descensus Averno facilis est