I assumed that he had seized the opportunity of leaving me in charge, and I dimly surmised that he was acting as Thorndyke's private inquiry agent, as he seemed to have done in the case of Samuel Wilkins.
On the evening of the second day Thorndyke came home in obviously good spirits, and his first proceedings aroused my expectant curiosity.

He went to a cupboard and brought forth a box of Trichinopoly cheroots.

Now the Trichinopoly cheroot was Thorndyke's one dissipation, to be enjoyed only on rare and specially festive occasions; which, in practice, meant those occasions on which he had scored some important point or solved some unusually tough problem.

Wherefore I watched him with lively interest.
"It's a pity that the 'Trichy' is such a poisonous beast," he remarked, taking up one of the cheroots and sniffing at it delicately.

"There is no other cigar like it, to a really abandoned smoker." He laid the cigar back in the box and continued: "I think I shall treat myself to one after dinner to celebrate the occasion." "What occasion ?" I asked.
"The completion of the Blackmore case.