Scarcely a minute had elapsed from the first shot until the getaway car vanished, but with its disappearance the actuality faded and the myth took over. All in all there were more than fifty witnesses of the holdup in its various stages, yet each impression now began to work in the yeast of individual preconceptions. The car was black, it was green, it was shiny, it was mud-streaked. There were two cars. The men who did the shooting were dark, were pale, had blue suits, had brown suits, had gray suits, wore felt hats, wore caps, were bareheaded. Only one had a gun, both had guns. The third man had been behind the brick pile with a shotgun all the time. Anywhere between eight and thirty shots had been fired. On some points there was a rough agreement: The car was a touring car, there were five men in it, the driver was a fair, sallow man, and the two men who had begun the shooting were short and clean-shaven. The three gunmen had scarcely climbed into their car before Jim McGlone crawled from the excavation to where Parmenter lay sprawled on a stone. “I got him by the shoulder,” McGlone related two days later at the inquest, “and asked him where he was hurt and he didn’t answer, and I lowered his head to the ground. I went to the double team and got a horse blanket to put under Parmenter’s head and my brother came along and we lifted Parmenter up and they spread the horse blanket out and we put Parmenter in, and my brother and two other fellows took hold of a corner of the blanket and we carried him into the house.” As soon as the car had passed the water tower Jimmy Bostock ran back to Berardelli. The detective lay on his side, his lips open, and with every breath blood foamed from his mouth. Bostock propped the guard’s head up slightly and wiped his face with a handkerchief. Berardelli gave a shudder, the bright bubbling at his mouth stopped, and Bostock knew that the man was dead. In the gravel Bostock noted four spent shell cases. He picked them up and put them in his pocket.