Holding one glass in his left hand he lifted another with his right, and mixed the liquids. Then he placed the glasses on the table, and fixed his eyes upon them.
He had not once looked steadily at me, but I recognised in his actions a magnetic power which, had I been a man of weak nerve, would have compelled me to follow the result of this experiment with an interest as keen as his own appeared to be, and to the exclusion of every other subject. To put it more plainly, he would, in a manner of speaking, have emptied my mind of its own thoughts and replaced them with his. This is what did not occur. I followed the experiment with simple curiosity.
After a silence which lasted two or three minutes he lifted his eyes from the glasses, and they met mine. I smiled and nodded at him. He did not return my salutation, and there was no change in his gray face.
In the matter of expression I never met a man who seemed so utterly devoid of it as Dr. Pye. His features might have been carved in wood, his eyes might have been steel balls, for all the indication they gave of what was passing in his mind. When you have any business on hand with a man of that kind, beware. I had no need of the warning, having all my wits about me, and having come prepared for possible squalls; and whatever were my feelings regarding Dr. Pye, admiration was certainly one of them. The prospect of a battle royal with such an antagonist exhilarated me.
We continued to gaze at each other for a few moments, and I was careful not to change my expression. That he was disappointed in my manner I did not doubt; I was not exactly the kind of man he would have liked me to be. My mind was my own; he had no power over it.
Presently he turned his attention again to the glasses on the table, timing with his watch some expected change in the liquids he had mixed. If he was the party I was searching for I needed to look to my safety, so, though I showed no fear, and felt none, I did not move from the spot upon which I had taken my stand on entering the room. The handle of the door was within reach of my hand, so was my pretty little revolver, which I can hold in my palm without anyone being the wiser.
Opening a cupboard which, in my swift observation of it, contained nothing but a few sticks and glasses, he took a slender cane from a shelf, and stirred up the liquid. As he did so it burst gradually into flame, in which shone all the colours of the rainbow. Tiny streams of fire ascended fountainlike into the air, and dropped back into the glass; it burnt, I should say, for the space of three minutes, the colours all the time glowing and changing. In a small way I have seldom seen anything prettier. At first I was inclined to regard this little performance as a kind of hanky-panky, but I soon corrected myself, for any person less resembling a vulgar showman than Dr. Pye it would be difficult to find.
The coruscations of colour died away, the spiral threads of fire had spent themselves, the liquid had disappeared, and at the bottom of the glass was a small sediment, which Dr. Pye carefully emptied into a piece of white satin tissue paper, which he carefully folded and put into his pocket. Then he spoke.
"I gave the maid instructions that no person was to be admitted to see me, as I was engaged upon an exceedingly delicate experiment which it has taken me some days to prepare."
"I hope it has been successful," I said, politely.