Sacco sent it to Thompson, who came at once to the jail to talk with Madeiros. The three men talked together in the reception room for an hour, Madeiros answering Thompson’s questions while the lawyer made notes on the back of an envelope. The Portuguese was quite willing to tell about what he claimed was his part in the South Braintree holdup, but he said he would not identify any of his companions. Sacco, sitting beside him, shaking with excitement, kept interjecting: “For Jesus’s sake, tell the truth!” Madeiros’ story was that on April 15, 1920, he was picked up at 4 A.M. at Zack’s Hotel in Providence, Rhode Island, by four Italians who arrived in a five-passenger Hudson touring car. They drove to some woods near Oak Street in Randolph, Massachusetts, where they found another Italian waiting with a Buick. Changing cars, they drove to South Boston, where they stopped at a saloon in Andrews Square. Then, after returning to Providence, they headed for South Braintree, where they arrived about noon. They killed a few more hours in a speakeasy a few miles from the shoe factories and then, just before three, left for South Braintree. During the holdup Madeiros said he sat in the back seat “scared to death” with a Colt .38, which he did not use, in his hand. The payroll money, he said, had been in a large black bag. “These four men,” he told Thompson, “persuaded me to go with them two or three nights before when I was talking with them in a saloon in Providence. They talked like professionals. They said they had done lots of jobs of this kind. They had been engaged in robbing freight cars in Providence. Two were young men from twenty to twenty-five-years old, one was about forty, the other thirty-five. All wore caps. I was then eighteen years old. I do not remember whether they were shaved or not. Two of them did the shooting—the oldest one and another. They were left on the street. The arrangement was that they should meet me in a Providence saloon the next night to divide the money. I went there but they did not come. “They had been stealing silk, shoes, cotton from freight cars and sending it to New York. Two of them lived on North Main Street, in lodging houses. I had known them three or four months. The old man was named Mike. Another was called Williams or Bill. I don’t remember what the others were called.”