Explore "The Pit-Prop Syndicate" by Freeman Wills Crofts on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The consideration which had thus suddenly occurred to Inspector Willis was the extraordinary importance of the fact that the tall traveller had spoken through the tube to the driver. He marveled how he could have overlooked its significance. To speak through a taxi tube one must hold up the mouthpiece, and that mouthpiece is usually made of vulcanite or some similar substance. What better surface, Willis thought delightedly but anxiously, could be found for recording fingerprints? If only the tall man had made the blunder of omitting to wear gloves, he would have left evidence which might hang him! And he, Willis, like the cursed imbecile that he was, had missed the point! Goodness only knew if he was not already too late. If so, he thought grimly, it was all up with his career at the Yard.
He ran to the telephone. A call to the Yard advised him that the taxi driver, on being informed he was no longer required, had left with his vehicle. He rapidly rang up the man's employers, asking them to stop the cab directly they came in touch with it, then hurrying out of the hotel, he hailed a taxi and drove to the rank on which the man was stationed.