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Liam had the most ridiculous suspicion.
It had begun while visiting Winnie. Bits of her hair continually escaped the cap she wore but did not fall over her shoulder as would be expected, considering she usually wore her hair pulled up in a bun. It hung, instead, at the precise chin length that Fred wore his. It even held the same tiny hint of a wave. Ended in the same blunt cut. And was exactly the same color.
And when he had told her that he solved mysteries, she acknowledged his role in the formation of the Conundrums Club. But they had never discussed that. It was, of course, possible Fred had told her, but he was beginning to dismiss that explanation.
Fred and Winnie looked enough alike to be twins.
Fred was never seen with even the slightest hint of whiskers, no matter the time of day.
Winnie was tall for a woman—the precise height, in fact, of her brother.
Fred’s clothing hid everything about his build. Even those who saw him every day would be hard-pressed to know if he was thin as a rail or built like a pugilist.
And, more odd yet, the two siblings were never seen together. Not once. Liam had visited their flat on more than one occasion, and Fred was always away. Always.
’Twas a maddening prospect, what his mind was concocting, but he was beginning to firmly believe it.
Dr. Poole suspected something was deceptive about Fred Fitzsimmons. Liam was nearly certain he had discovered what that something was. And it was enormous.
The matter weighed so heavily on him that he struggled to focus on his studies with exams looming large. Joined to that mental burden was the all-too-acute memory of Winnie tossing him out. He could hardly blame her—he’d been less than forthright with her—but if his suspicions were correct, she had been far from honest with him.
He intercepted Fred stepping through Trinity’s Front Gate and out toward Grafton Street. Liam hooked his arm through Fred’s and tucked him up firmly against himself.
“Let’s take a walk,” he said quietly.
“I need to get home,” Fred muttered.
“I know the way. We can talk as we walk.”
But their excursion began in silence. Fred’s hair peeked out from beneath his hat, landing precisely as Winnie’s had from under her cap the day before. Precisely.
The profile was the same. The baggy clothing could easily hide a slim woman’s frame.
“Oh, Winnie,” he whispered on a frustrated sigh.
That brought “Fred’s” eyes to his, wide and wary.
“Did you think I wouldn’t sort this out?” Liam asked.
“Sort what?”
“I would gladly say it out loud, but I suspect you’d rather not risk being overheard.” Liam motioned to the many people coming and going on the busy street. “I know the connection between you, ‘Fred,’” he gave her a knowing look, “and Winnie, who I’m realizing is actually ‘Winnifred.’ Clever.”
She had grown quite stiff beside him. Seeing the fear in her expression softened some of his frustration.
“If I release your arm, do you promise not to run off?” he asked.
“I suppose I’d best discover what you know and what you mean to do about it.” She used her “Fred” voice, no doubt owing to the number of people nearby.
“Wise.” He released her arm, and they walked on. “Do you actually have a brother Fred, or was he entirely invented?”
“I have no siblings, and my parents are both dead.”
So a complete invention. “And what inspired you to undertake this ruse?”
“Rules forbidding me from obtaining an education unless I did.”
Women weren’t permitted to study at Trinity. Or, as far as he knew, any other medical school, for that matter.
“And you desperately wanted to become a doctor?”
She shook her head. “Desperately needed to.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You and I say that a lot, you know.”
Under other circumstances, he might have found that observation amusing. “Why did you need to become a doctor so badly that you would undertake all this?”
“My village doesn’t have a doctor,” she said. “The nearest one is in Bray. Most of the time, when people need one, they die before getting help.”
“So, Fred will be returning to Kinnelow without Winnie?”
“No. T’ other way around.”
That didn’t make any sense. “How can Winnie be a doctor in the village? The people won’t—” But then another piece of the puzzle fell into place. “The village knows about this.”
She nodded. “’Twas the village’s idea.”
“Why would they take such a risk? Why would you?”
She breathed slowly. “We’ve lost all our other options. What the Famine didn’t take, the Crimean War did.”
“You have no young men left?”
“Two have returned in the last year, but there were none when I began here four years ago.”
Which drove home to Liam the fact that she had managed this deception for four years without being found out. That took both determination and cleverness, and a lot of half-truths.
“If the governing board sorts this out, you won’t be granted your degree.”
“The least of my worries,” she whispered.
“How do you mean?”
“If this is sorted out, I will go to jail.”
Mercy. “You will?”
She tugged her hat ever lower, hiding her face from view. “It is fraud, Liam. Significant, at that.”
He hadn’t thought of that. Merciful heavens.
They’d reached the door of Winnie’s flat. She stood on the stoop, likely looking at him from under the hat. “What do you mean to do?” she asked.
“What do you mean to do?”
She held up her hands in a show of helplessness. “I don’t know.”
“Neither do I,” he admitted.
“I made certain no one was injured by this,” she said. “I intentionally did not take the scholars exam, leaving those to be awarded to men. I did not take any space in student boarding houses. The village has paid my tuition, none of it subsidized. I need only a few days more, is all.”
What an utter mess. “MacDonnell and Poole will be expecting me to tell them what I have discovered.”
“And do you mean to tell them?”
He hadn’t a ready answer for her.
She gave the tiniest of nods, then turned and, unlocking the door, slipped inside and out of sight.
What was he going to do?