Who was Horace Danby and why did he steal?

A fifty-year-old locksmith, unmarried, respectable, and good at his job. He was not poor and not desperate — he stole because he loved rare and expensive books, and robbed one safe a year to buy them through an agent.

Why is the story called A Question of Trust?

Because trust is what defeats Horace. He is a thief who trusts a stranger on nothing more than a confident manner and a red dress, and he is robbed by her precisely because of it. The title is ironic: the one professional habit he abandons — caution — is the one that mattered.

How was Horace Danby caught?

By his own fingerprints. He always wore gloves on a job, but the young woman asked him to open the safe for her, and in the ordinariness of helping he took them off. When the jewels were reported stolen, his prints were over the whole safe — and he had opened it himself, so no one believed his story.

Who was the young woman in the red dress?

Never named, and not the owner of the house. She was another thief, working the same evening, who found a stranger already inside and improvised. She claimed to be the owner’s wife, said she had forgotten the safe combination, and let Horace open it for her.

What is the moral of A Question of Trust?

That confidence is not evidence. Horace judges the woman by how she behaves rather than by anything he can check, and a professional who is careful about locks turns out to be careless about people. The story is funny rather than preachy about it — his punishment is that he now polishes silver in prison.

CBSE · Class 10 English · Footprints Without Feet, Chapter 4

A Question of Trust — summary, the twist, and why Horace was caught

Horace Danby robs one safe a year to buy rare books. At Shotover Grange a young woman in a red dress catches him, claims to be the owner's wife, and asks him to open the safe because she has forgotten the combination. He takes off his gloves to do it. She was a thief too — and his fingerprints convict him.

Author: Victor Canning
Book: Footprints Without Feet
Chapter: 4
Type: Ironic short story

Summary

Horace Danby is about fifty, unmarried, and by every outward measure respectable. He makes locks, employs two people, and is thought of as a good honest citizen. He is also, once a year, a burglar — not out of need, but because he loves rare and expensive books and buys them through an agent with the proceeds of a single carefully chosen robbery.

This year the house is Shotover Grange. Horace has done his homework: he has studied the rooms, the wiring, the garden, the safe behind a poor painting, and he knows the family is in London and the servants are out. He wears gloves, as he always does. He has just begun on the safe when a voice stops him — a young woman in a red dress, standing in the doorway with a dog, entirely unbothered.

She tells him she is the owner's wife, come back unexpectedly. Rather than call the police, she strikes a bargain: she needs her jewels for a party that night, she has forgotten the combination, and if he opens the safe for her she will say nothing. Horace, relieved, agrees. To handle the tools and the jewel box he takes off his gloves — the single professional habit he had never broken, abandoned in the middle of being helpful.

He goes home pleased with himself. Two days later the police arrest him. The jewels are gone and the safe is covered in his fingerprints. His account — a young woman in a red dress asked him to do it — collapses the moment the real owner's wife is produced and turns out to be someone else entirely. No one believes a burglar who says he was robbed.

Horace is sentenced. He now works in the prison library, and is allowed to polish the silver — which, the story notes drily, is as close to a safe as he is likely to get again.

Where the story turns

1 The gloves come off The hinge of the whole plot, and easy to miss on a first reading. Horace has worn gloves on every job of his career. He removes them not under threat but while doing someone a favour — which is exactly why he does not notice it mattering.
2 He believes her because she is calm She offers no proof and he asks for none. A woman who is not frightened of a burglar in her own drawing room reads, to him, as a woman who belongs there. That inference is the entire con.
3 The story never names her She is only ever the young lady in red. Canning keeps her anonymous so that she stays a device rather than a character — the reader, like Horace, never gets to check.

Themes and irony

The title cuts both ways

Horace trusts a stranger and loses everything. She trusts nothing and takes everything. The question of trust is not whether to give it but on what evidence.

Appearance versus proof

A red dress, a dog, an unbothered manner. Horace is a careful professional about locks and an amateur about people — and the story is precise that these are different skills.

Crime does not pay, told as comedy

Canning refuses to moralise. Horace is punished by his own habits, not by justice arriving, and the closing image of him polishing prison silver is a joke rather than a sermon.

The thief robbed by a thief

The oldest shape in comic fiction. It works here because Horace is likeable — fussy, hay-fevered, book-loving — so the reader wants him to get away with it and is not allowed to.

A Question of Trust — questions students ask

Who was Horace Danby and why did he steal?: A fifty-year-old locksmith, unmarried, respectable, and good at his job. He was not poor and not desperate — he stole because he loved rare and expensive books, and robbed one safe a year to buy them through an agent.
Why is the story called A Question of Trust?: Because trust is what defeats Horace. He is a thief who trusts a stranger on nothing more than a confident manner and a red dress, and he is robbed by her precisely because of it. The title is ironic: the one professional habit he abandons — caution — is the one that mattered.
How was Horace Danby caught?: By his own fingerprints. He always wore gloves on a job, but the young woman asked him to open the safe for her, and in the ordinariness of helping he took them off. When the jewels were reported stolen, his prints were over the whole safe — and he had opened it himself, so no one believed his story.
Who was the young woman in the red dress?: Never named, and not the owner of the house. She was another thief, working the same evening, who found a stranger already inside and improvised. She claimed to be the owner’s wife, said she had forgotten the safe combination, and let Horace open it for her.
What is the moral of A Question of Trust?: That confidence is not evidence. Horace judges the woman by how she behaves rather than by anything he can check, and a professional who is careful about locks turns out to be careless about people. The story is funny rather than preachy about it — his punishment is that he now polishes silver in prison.