A Question of Trust

Why This Matters

Think about a time someone smooth and confident talked you into doing something — and only later you realised you had been fooled. Maybe a stranger borrowed your phone “just for a call”. Maybe someone cut a line by acting like they belonged there. Confidence is powerful. When a person acts sure of themselves, our brain tends to believe them.

This story plays with exactly that idea. A clever thief named Horace Danby has robbed safes for years without getting caught. He plans every detail. He is careful, smart, and never makes mistakes. Then one afternoon a charming young woman in a red dress walks in — and with nothing but a calm voice and a good story, she tricks him completely.

By the end you will see something a little funny and a little scary: even a careful, intelligent person can be undone in a single careless moment. The story quietly asks a question that matters far beyond the exam — who do we trust, and why? That is what makes it stick in your memory for life.

The Big Idea

A skilled thief who never makes mistakes is outsmarted by an even cleverer thief. A charming woman in red pretends to be the owner of the house. She uses Horace’s own fear of prison to make him open the safe and hand her the jewels — without his gloves. His fingerprints get him arrested, while she walks away free. The story is built on irony and a sharp lesson about misplaced trust: the careful man trusted the wrong person, and the old belief in “honour among thieves” turns out to be a myth.

Before we go deeper, here is one literary term that is the key to this whole chapter. Get it clear now and the ending will hit you properly.

📖 Where to read the original: For copyright reasons, the full original text is not reproduced here — read it in your NCERT Footprints Without Feet textbook. This page gives you a complete summary and explanation to study alongside it.

The Story

The story was written by the British writer Victor Canning. Let’s walk through it in order, simply.

Everyone thought Horace Danby was a good, honest man. He was about fifty, unmarried, and lived with a housekeeper who fussed over his health. He made locks for a living and was successful enough to employ two helpers. He looked completely respectable. But there was a secret. Horace was good and respectable — but not completely honest.

Horace loved rare, expensive books. To pay for them, he robbed one safe every year. He never took more than he needed for twelve months. He planned each robbery with great care, stole the money, and quietly bought his beloved books through an agent. He had done this for years and never been caught.

This year he had chosen a house called Shotover Grange. He had studied it for two whole weeks — its rooms, its wiring, its garden paths. There were about fifteen thousand pounds’ worth of jewels in the safe, hidden behind a painting. On this July afternoon the two servants had gone to the movies, leaving the house empty. Horace put on his gloves (he was always careful never to leave fingerprints), took the kitchen key from its hook, calmed the friendly little dog Sherry, and got to work. He cut the burglar alarm wire. Everything was going perfectly — except for a tickle of hay fever in his nose from a bowl of flowers on the table, which kept making him sneeze.

Then a voice spoke from the doorway: “What is it? A cold or hay fever?” Horace turned. A young woman in a red dress was standing there. She was pretty and calm. The dog ran to her happily. She acted completely at home — she straightened the ornaments and scolded the dog. She said she was the lady of the house, back from London, and joked that she “didn’t expect to meet a burglar”.

Horace was scared but hopeful. She seemed amused, not angry. Maybe he could talk his way out. They went back and forth. He thought about running; she said she would simply call the police. He thought about threatening her; he found he could not really do it. He begged her to let him go and promised never to steal again. She watched him closely and saw the one thing that controlled him: he was terrified of going to prison.

Then she made her move. She said she would let him go — but only if he did something for her first. She explained that she had left her jewels in the safe, and she wanted to wear them to a party that night. The problem? She had “forgotten the numbers” to open the safe. Could he open it for her? Horace, desperate to please her and get away, eagerly agreed. To light her cigarette, he had already taken off his gloves. Within an hour he had opened the safe, handed her all the jewels, and walked away happily, grateful to be free.

For two days Horace kept his promise and did not steal. On the third day he started planning his next safe — but he never got the chance. By noon, a policeman arrested him for the jewel robbery at Shotover Grange. His fingerprints were all over the room (he had opened the safe with bare hands). No one believed his story that the owner’s wife had asked him to open the safe. The real wife was a grey-haired, sharp-tongued woman of sixty — nothing like the young lady in red. She said his story was nonsense.

Horace is now the assistant librarian in the prison. He often thinks about the charming, clever young woman who was a thief just like him — and who tricked him completely. And he gets very angry whenever anyone mentions “honour among thieves”.

Now let’s slow down and understand why each piece of this story works the way it does.

Let’s Break It Down

The characters: Horace Danby and the woman in red

The whole story turns on two people, and the contrast between them is the point. Figure 4.1 walks through the plot in order so the events are fixed in your mind before we study the people.

Tap to zoom

Look at how different the two characters are. Horace is a gentle, careful, almost timid criminal. He hates the thought of hurting anyone. He hates prison. He only steals from rich people, only once a year, and only to buy books. He plans everything in tiny detail. The woman is his opposite: bold, charming, quick-thinking, and ruthless. She walks into a robbery, takes total control in seconds, and feels no guilt about sending an innocent-acting man to prison. Figure 4.2 lines up what Horace believed about her against the truth.

Tap to zoom

The CON: how she tricked him, step by step

She had no weapon and no help. She had only words and confidence. So how did she fool an experienced thief? She did it in small, smooth steps. She acted completely at home — calling the dog by name, straightening the ornaments, joking like the real owner would. She never panicked. She let Horace think he might escape, so he stayed hopeful and obedient instead of desperate. Then she found his weak spot — his fear of prison — and used it. Her “forgotten the code” story was the perfect trap: it gave him a job that felt small and safe, while it actually made him do the entire robbery for her.

Here we must ask the question NCERT skips: why did a careful, intelligent man fall for this? A student reading alone wonders, “He plans for two weeks. He cuts alarm wires. He wears gloves. How does he get fooled by a story?” The answer is in Figure 4.3.

Tap to zoom

So the trick works because of two things hitting him together. Her confident act makes him believe she is the harmless owner. His own fear makes him stop thinking clearly and just want out. A calm, careful Horace would have asked: “Why does the owner not know her own safe code? Why is she so relaxed about a stranger breaking in?” But a frightened Horace, who has been handed an easy way to escape, grabs it without question. Fear is the real thief here — it steals his judgement.

The IRONY: a thief robbed by a cleverer thief

This is the heart of the story, so make sure the irony is crystal clear. Horace is a thief. His whole skill is not getting caught. He has succeeded for years. And the one time he gets caught, it is not the police who beat him — it is another thief, working the very same house, who beats him. He came to rob, and he was robbed. He came to take jewels, and instead he handed them away with his own hands. Figure 4.4 lays out both meanings of the title and the irony underneath it.

Tap to zoom

There is a second layer too. The title is “A Question of Trust” — and the word trust points two ways. First, Horace trusted the woman, and that misplaced trust destroyed him. Second, there is the old saying “honour among thieves” — the belief that even criminals are loyal to one another and would not cheat their own kind. Horace, in a strange way, half-trusted that idea. But the woman shows it is a myth. She is a thief, and she cheats a fellow thief without a second thought. That is why Horace gets so angry whenever anyone mentions “honour among thieves” — life proved the saying false at his own expense.

The theme: misplaced trust and one careless moment

The deeper message of the story is about trust and carelessness. Horace’s downfall is not bad luck. It comes from two human failings. First, he trusted a stranger because she was charming and confident — he judged her by her manner, not by asking sensible questions. Second, in one weak moment, he dropped his guard. Removing the gloves seems like a tiny thing. It was not. It was the single careless act that turned all the evidence against him. Figure 4.5 traces that exact chain.

Tap to zoom

Notice why the gloves matter so much. Fingerprints are unique to each person, like a signature no one can fake. A safe opened with gloves leaves no trace of who did it. A safe opened with bare hands leaves a perfect record. The moment Horace removed his gloves — to do a small, polite thing — he signed his name on the crime. That is the chilling lesson: a careful man’s whole defence can be wiped out by one small slip. And he made that slip because he trusted her and wanted to please her. Trust and carelessness are linked. His misplaced trust is what led him to be careless.

Let’s compare the two thieves side by side, because exams often ask you to contrast them.

Common Mistakes

These are the misreadings students fall into most often. Read each one — the “Why it seems right” part shows you the trap, and the “Actually” part sets it straight.

Quick Check

Test yourself. Pick an answer, then read the explanation to be sure you understand the why.

Practice Problems

Try each question on your own first. Write your answer, then tap to reveal a model answer and compare. The goal is not to copy — it is to check whether you covered the key points.

Easy

Medium

Challenge

Summary

Here are the key points you should now be able to explain in your own words.

• Horace Danby is a respectable lock-maker who is secretly a thief. He robs one safe a year to buy rare books, and he plans every robbery with great care.

• At Shotover Grange, a charming young woman in a red dress catches him in the act. She pretends to be the owner’s wife who has forgotten the safe code.

• Using her confident act and Horace’s fear of prison, she persuades him to open the safe and hand her the jewels — after he has taken off his gloves.

• Horace is arrested because his fingerprints are all over the room. The real owner’s wife is an old woman; the lady in red was a second, cleverer thief who escaped.

• The story is built on situational irony: a careful thief is robbed and jailed by a thief he never suspected.

• The title “A Question of Trust” warns against blind trust — Horace trusted the wrong person, and “honour among thieves” proves to be a myth.

• The deeper theme is that even a careful, intelligent person can be undone by misplaced trust and one careless moment.

What’s Next

Next is Chapter 5, “Footprints without Feet” by H.G. Wells — the story that gives this whole reader its name. It is about a brilliant but dangerous scientist named Griffin who discovers how to make himself invisible. At first that sounds like a dream power. But the story shows how Griffin uses it for theft and cruelty, and how invisibility slowly turns him into a lawless, frightening figure.

Watch for a familiar idea carried across from this chapter: just as Horace had a great skill (careful thieving) that did not save him, Griffin has an extraordinary power (invisibility) that does not bring him happiness or escape. Both stories quietly ask what a person does with their cleverness — and whether intelligence without honesty leads anywhere good.