I put it to Cynthia.
'They would find me out in a day,' I assured her. 'A man who wants to set up a school has got to be a pretty brainy sort of fellow. I don't know anything.'
'You got your degree.'
'A degree. At any rate, I've forgotten all I knew.'
'That doesn't matter. You have the money. Anybody with money can start a school, even if he doesn't know a thing. Nobody would think it strange.'
It struck me as a monstrous slur on our educational system, but reflection told me it was true. The proprietor of a preparatory school, if he is a man of wealth, need not be able to teach, any more than an impresario need be able to write plays.
'Well, we'll pass that for the moment,' I said. 'Here's the real difficulty. How are you going to find out the school Mr Ford has chosen?'
'I have found it out already—or Nesta has. She set a detective to work. It was perfectly easy. Ogden's going to Mr Abney's. Sanstead House is the name of the place. It's in Hampshire somewhere. Quite a small school, but full of little dukes and earls and things. Lord Mountry's younger brother, Augustus Beckford, is there.'
I had known Lord Mountry and his family well some years ago. I remembered Augustus dimly.
'Mountry? Do you know him? He was up at Oxford with me.'