As his guard, still following, reached the telephone pole, the strangers whipped their hands from their pockets, and the man in the cap lunged forward, pinning Berardelli by the shoulder with his left hand while his right brought up a pistol. Berardelli tried to grapple with him, but before he could get a grip the man fired into him three times. Parmenter turned like a cat to find the same man now facing him, pistol in hand, and Berardelli just behind, his knees buckling. Then the gun muzzle flashed and a bullet struck him in the chest. He flinched, took a few steps sideways, and the man fired again. This time the bullet struck him in the back, and as he staggered across the street his legs began to go limp. Berardelli lay in the gutter, his arms twitching, the second cashbox just beyond the reach of his right hand. The man in the felt hat snatched up the box, then darted out toward the box Parmenter had dropped. The man in the cap, who had followed Parmenter halfway across the street, now signaled with his pistol and fired again. As he did so the dark touring car that had been parked below Slater & Morrill seventy-five yards away started jerkily uphill with a grinding of gears. The staccato sound of the shots echoed from the factory walls. From the loft of the livery stable the pigeons swirled up into the sunshine, then wheeled over the Hampton House. At the end of the wooden fence, almost at the crossing, Jimmy Bostock turned to see Berardelli doubling up and the gunman firing. Parmenter was walking jerkily across the street, and Bostock did not realize the paymaster had been hit until he began to sag. Seeing him fall, Bostock took a few steps toward him, but as he did so the man in the cap froze him by the fence with two shots. The touring car churned along the street, sputtering and skipping, the driver furiously working the spark lever on the steering wheel. Berardelli had managed to get to his hands and knees. Before the car stopped a man, crouched on the running board, sprang off near the brick pile. He had an automatic in his hand. Stepping to the swaying Berardelli, he fired point-blank. Berardelli collapsed in the gravel. The first two bandits had piled into the back seat with the cashboxes. After firing several shots at the upper factory windows, the third bandit climbed in the back seat after them. As the car whined toward the crossing he crawled over into the front seat, leaning out, pistol in hand. Wade was just snapping the lock on the gas pump when he heard the noise and looked up the street, thinking the Italians had started a fight. He saw Parmenter drop behind the cart and then watched a wavy-haired man shoot at Berardelli.