Mr. Pinkerton arrived at Balize, the capital of British Honduras, on February 17, 1890, nearly two years after the date of the robbery. There he learned that Crawford's plantation was about ninety miles down the coast, a little back of Punta Gorda. Punta Gorda lies near the line separating British Honduras from Guatemala, and is not more than a hundred miles from Spanish Honduras, or Honduras proper, directly across the Gulf of Honduras.
Difficulties confronted Mr. Pinkerton from the very start. People were dying about him every day of yellow fever, and when he started for Punta Gorda on a little steamer, the engineer came aboard looking as yellow as saffron, and immediately began to vomit, so that he had to be taken ashore. Then the engine broke down several times on the voyage, and the heat was insufferable.
As the boat steamed slowly into Punta Gorda it passed a small steam craft loaded with bananas. "Look," said one of the passengers to Mr. Pinkerton, not aware of the nature of Mr. Pinkerton's mission, "there goes Crawford's launch now."
Landing at once, the detective waited for the launch to come to shore, which it presently did. The first man to come off was Marvin Crawford, whom Mr. Pinkerton recognized from a description, although he had never seen him. Then he saw Edward Crawford step off, dressed smartly in a white helmet hat, a red sash, a fine plaited linen shirt, blue trousers, patent-leather shoes, and so on. Mr. Pinkerton approached and held out his hand.
"I don't remember you," said Crawford; but his face went white.
"You used to know me in New York when I examined you before the bank officials," said the detective, pleasantly.
Crawford smiled in a sickly way and said, "Oh, yes; I remember you now."
Mr. Pinkerton explained that he had traveled five thousand miles to talk with him about the stolen money package. Crawford expressed willingness to furnish any information he could, and invited Mr. Pinkerton to go up to his plantation, where they could talk the matter over more comfortably. Seeing that his best course was to humor Crawford, Mr. Pinkerton consented, though realizing that he thus put himself in Crawford's power. They went aboard Crawford's launch and steamed up the river, a very narrow, winding stream, arched quite over through most of its length by the thick tropical foliage, and in some parts so deep that no soundings had yet found bottom. The plantation was entirely inaccessible by land on account of impassable swamps, and the crooked course of the river made it a journey of twenty-three miles from Punta Gorda, although in a straight line it was only six miles away.