At eight o'clock I knocked at Dr. Pye's door, and a young woman opened it, a fine upstanding animal from the country. "Norfolk," said I to myself when she asked me what I wanted in the sing-song voice peculiar to the county. "I want to see Dr. Pye," I said. "Not at home," she answered, without a moment's hesitation. "I think he is," I said. She stared at me helplessly. "That is the answer you've been told to give," I said. "Yes," she said. "To every one?" I asked. "Yes," she said. I slipped my card and a sixpence into her hand. "Put the sixpence in your pocket," I said, "and take my card up to Dr. Pye." Willing as she was to pocket the sixpence I think she would have shut the door in my face if I had left it free, but one leg was inside and one out. "You will get in trouble if you don't do as I tell you," I said. "I am an officer of the law--a policeman." I knew the magic there was in the word to a Norfolk village girl. "Take the card this instant to Dr. Pye," I said, in a tone of authority. She vanished, and I waited five minutes by my watch before she came down again. "You can come up," she said, and I noticed that she had been crying. We went upstairs together, and she opened a door. A man was standing at a table, holding a glass containing a liquid up to the gas light. Two other glasses containing liquid were on the table; the glasses were long and thin, and the liquid of different colours. With the exception of these glasses, the table, and two wooden chairs, the room was bare of furniture. The mantelshelf had not an article upon it, there was not a picture on the walls. The house is double-fronted, and must contain a great many rooms; the one I was in faced Shore Street; there was a shutter to the window, partly closed. "Dr. Pye?" I said. "I am Dr. Pye," he answered. "Do not interrupt me; I am making an experiment." I stood still and silent, and waited. From inquiries I have made no person in the neighbourhood is more than casually acquainted with Dr. Pye. He has a reputation as a scientific man, but I have been unable to ascertain on what precise grounds. It is supposed that he is always experimenting with chemicals and gases, and ignorant people go as far as to declare that he is searching for the elixir of life. He is not on visiting terms with any of his neighbours; all that is known and said of him is hearsay. A remarkable looking man. There is a stoop in his shoulders, and at the first glance he gives one the impression that he has passed all his life in study. His eyes are the colour of steel, and I should judge him to be possessed of great mesmeric power. His voice is slow and deliberate; his manners, also. A man less given to impulsive action I never gazed upon. I must not omit to mention that his hair is iron grey, and his face clean shaven. 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.