Sure enough, I found that Alfonso de Moche had been at the
University that day, must have attended a lecture an hour or so
before. Having nothing else to do, I hunted up some of his
professors and tried to quiz them about him.
As I had expected, they told me that he was an excellent student,
though very quiet and reserved. His mind seemed to run along the
line of engineering, and particularly mining. I could not help
coming to the conclusion that undoubtedly he, too, was infected by
the furore for treasure hunting, in spite of his Indian ancestry.
Yet there seemed to be surprisingly little known about him outside
of the lecture room and laboratory. The profesors knew that he
lived with his mother at a hotel downtown. He seemed to have
little or nothing to do with the other students outside of class
work. Altogether he was an enigma, as far as the social life of
the University went. It looked very much as though he had come to
New York quietly to prepare himself for the search for the buried
treasure. Had the Gold of the Gods lured him into its net, too?
Reflecting on the tangle of events, the strange actions of
Lockwood and the ambitions of Whitney, I retraced my steps in the
direction of the laboratory, convinced that de Moche had employed
at least a part of his time lately in spying on us.
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