Hellyer himself would take the stand almost at the end of the trial and testify that when he interviewed Mrs. Novelli on April 17, 1920, she had described the man beside the driver as “twenty-seven years, five feet seven inches tall, slim build, black hair, black eyes, dark complexion, thin features, wide mouth, smooth-shaven, but appeared to be a man who could grow a heavy beard from the dark stubble on his face.” Hellyer’s Pinkerton report, which was not produced in evidence, recorded a markedly different description of the man: “27 years, 5 feet eight inches, medium build, light brown hair, fair complexion and smooth shaven, wore a cap but cannot recollect what else he wore.” Mrs. Novelli was followed by minor witnesses whose fleeting glimpses, although not enough to establish much about the other passengers in the Buick, at least corroborated the now-undisputed fact that the driver was a pale, fair man. Elmer Chase, who had been loading his truck in front of the Co-operative Society as the Buick passed, had looked down at the driver and the bareheaded man next to him. He was positive that neither of the men he saw that day were the men in the cage. Walter Desmond, the tobacco salesman who had met and passed the Buick on his way from Randolph, had seen the pale-faced driver but scarcely noticed the man next to him. All he could say in court was that the driver was not one of the defendants. Wilson Dorr, working in the sandpit with John Lloyd on the Stoughton Post Road, had seen four “light complected,” men in the Buick as it passed within twenty-five feet of him. All had looked directly at him. None of them resembled Sacco or Vanzetti. * * * * * It was to be Vanzetti’s claim that he had spent April 15 in North Plymouth going his usual rounds with his pushcart. Before he himself took the stand to make this claim, the defense introduced witnesses to corroborate it. The first was Joseph Rosen, a thirty-three-year-old cloth peddler from Dorchester. On the fifteenth Rosen arrived in Plymouth at ten minutes to eight. After eating breakfast at Ventura’s Restaurant on Court Street, he had taken the streetcar to North Plymouth, carrying a valise of men’s suiting and some swatches. He met Vanzetti near Cherry Street and showed him a piece of blue serge that was enough for a suit. He offered it cheap because it had a couple of small holes in it. Vanzetti wanted to let Alfonsina Brini see the cloth. Together Rosen and Vanzetti walked several blocks to Cherry Court, where the Brinis had recently moved. Alfonsina knew cloth because she had once worked in a woolen mill. She felt the material and said it was a good buy. Vanzetti paid Rosen $12.25, then gave him another fifty cents when he complained he was losing money. It must have been about twelve o’clock when they left the Brinis’, for as they came out the whistles were blowing and people were hurrying home from the Cordage for lunch.