A Question of Trust · Class 10 English · Footprints Without Feet: 60 flashcards
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1. Who wrote 'A Question of Trust'?
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Victor Canning.
2. How does the story describe Horace Danby in one phrase?
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Good and respectable — but not completely honest.
3. Give four ordinary facts about Horace Danby.
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He was about fifty, unmarried, lived with a housekeeper who worried about his health, and made locks well enough to employ two helpers. He was usually well except for hay fever in summer.
4. What does Horace Danby like to collect?
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Rare and expensive books, which he bought secretly through an agent.
5. Why does he steal every year?
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To pay for those books. He planned one robbery a year, took enough to last twelve months, and spent it on the books he loved.
6. What do we learn about his criminal record?
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That fifteen years earlier he had served his first and only sentence — and that he spent it in the prison library.
7. How long had he studied Shotover Grange, and what did he study?
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Two weeks, during which he went over the whole place — where the rooms were, how the wiring ran, and what the paths and the garden were like.
8. Why was the house empty that afternoon?
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The family were in London, and the two servants left in charge had gone to the movies. He watched them go, and had four hours.
9. How much was in the safe, and what did he expect to get?
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About fifteen thousand pounds' worth of jewels; sold one by one he expected at least five thousand — enough for a year, and for three books coming up for sale in the autumn.
10. How did Horace get into the house?
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With the kitchen key, which he had seen the housekeeper hang on a hook outside. He put on gloves first, as he was always careful to leave no fingerprints.
11. How did he deal with the dog?
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He called it by its name — Sherry — and walked past. To keep a dog quiet, he says, you only have to use its right name and show it affection.
12. Where was the safe?
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In the drawing room, behind a rather poor painting.
13. Why did Horace decide against collecting pictures?
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Because paintings take up too much room, and in a small house books are better.
14. What went wrong with the burglary from the start?
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A great bowl of flowers on the table set off his hay fever. He sneezed, sneezed loudly again, found the flowers hindering his work, and had to bury his face in his handkerchief.
15. What is hay fever, according to the glossary?
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A disorder affecting the nose and throat, caused by an allergy to pollen or dust.
16. What did Horace do about the burglar alarm?
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He went into the hall and cut its wire — it was poorly built, and the safe itself was not going to be hard to open.
17. Why was opening the safe no problem for him?
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Because he had spent his whole life among locks and safes — he made locks for a living.
18. What had a magazine article revealed about the house?
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It had described the house, printed a layout of every room in the house and a photograph of the drawing room, and went so far as to say that there was a safe behind the painting.
19. What does Horace think about people who own valuable things?
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That they are foolish — and the magazine article proves his point.
20. Which three details from this section decide the ending?
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That he is wearing gloves, which he will later take off; that he is there to steal the jewels; and that his hay fever is loud enough to be heard from the top of the house.
21. What are the first words spoken to Horace in the drawing room?
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A question from the doorway asking whether it is a cold or hay fever — and he answers 'Hay fever' before he can think.
22. What advice does the woman give him about his hay fever?
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That a special treatment is possible if he finds out which plant causes it, and that he should see a doctor if he is serious about his work.
23. How had she known he was there?
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She had heard him — the sneezing — from the top of the house.
24. Describe the woman as she appears in the doorway.
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Young, quite pretty and dressed in red, with a quiet, kindly voice that has firmness in it. Sherry rubs against her.
25. What does she do as soon as she enters the room?
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She walks to the fireplace and straightens the ornaments there, and tells the dog to get down, saying anyone would think she had been away for a month.
26. Why are those two small actions so effective?
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Because neither is a claim. People only tidy their own ornaments and scold their own dogs, so Horace concludes for himself that she lives there.
27. What does Horace say that shows he has accepted her story?
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That he had not expected to meet one of the family — he puts her deception into words himself.
28. What does Horace say his first thought was?
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To run — to which she replies that she would telephone the police, and they would get him at once.
29. What threat does Horace make, and what happens to it?
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That he would cut the telephone wires and then make sure she could do nothing for some hours. When she asks whether he would hurt her, he admits he was only trying to frighten her — and she tells him flatly that he did not.
30. Why does she refuse, at first, to let him go?
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Because he was going to rob her, and if she lets him go he will only rob somebody else — society, she says, must be protected from men like him.
31. How does Horace defend himself?
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He says he is not a man who threatens society, that he steals only from those who have plenty of money, that he steals for a very good reason, and that he hates the thought of prison.
32. Which part of his defence does she pick up?
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His fear of prison — she asks him directly whether he is really afraid of going there.
33. What does she say as she comes over to him?
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That she has always liked the wrong kind of people.
34. What is the single most important thing Horace does in this section?
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He takes off his gloves — to hold out his cigarette lighter for her — and never puts them on again.
35. Why does he take them off?
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Because he is eager to please her, having seen that she might help him. She lights a cigarette taken from a silver box on the table.
36. What bargain does she offer?
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That she will let him go, but only if he does something for her.
37. What story does she tell about the jewels?
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That before they left for London she promised her husband to take her jewels to the bank, but left them in the safe; that she wants to wear them to a party that night; and that she has come down to get them.
38. What excuse does Horace supply for her?
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That she has forgotten the numbers to open the safe — and she agrees that she has.
39. What does Horace warn her about, and how does she answer?
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That he will have to break the safe. She tells him not to worry, since her husband will not be back for a month and she will have it mended by then.
40. What has really happened by the end of this section?
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A burglar who came to steal the jewels has been persuaded to take them out of the safe as a favour, without gloves, for a stranger whose only credentials were a dog, a mantelpiece, a red dress and two unfinished stories.
41. What did Horace do after the bargain was struck?
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Within an hour he had got the safe open, handed the jewels over and walked off well pleased with himself.
42. How long did Horace keep his promise?
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Two days. On the morning of the third he thought of the books he wanted and knew he would have to look for another safe.
43. What happened before he could begin his next robbery?
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A policeman arrested him before midday, on a charge of stealing the jewels from Shotover Grange.
44. Why was Horace caught?
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Because he had opened the safe without gloves, so his fingerprints were all over the room.
45. What was Horace's defence, and why did it fail?
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That the lady of the house had asked him to get the safe open on her behalf. Nobody believed him — it sounds exactly like something a caught burglar would invent.
46. What did the real wife say?
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That the story was nonsense. She was a grey-haired, sharp-tongued woman of sixty, and from where she stood it plainly was.
47. Who is the real culprit in the story?
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The young woman in red — another thief, who took the jewels, left no fingerprints and arranged for Horace to be holding the evidence.
48. What is Horace doing now?
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He is the assistant librarian in the prison.
49. Why is that ending so neat?
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Because the story's third paragraph told us that his first and only sentence had been served in a prison library. The book-lover ends surrounded by books he cannot own.
50. What does Horace think about now?
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The young woman who outwitted him — clever, charming, and, as he puts it, in the same line of business as himself.
51. What makes him very angry?
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Any mention of honour among thieves.
52. Which of the two proverbs does the story illustrate?
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'Set a thief to catch a thief.' It took a thief to read Horace correctly and outwit him; and it flatly disproves 'honour among thieves', since the person who robbed him was a colleague.
53. Where exactly did the meticulous planner go wrong?
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Three times: he trusted a stranger who offered no proof of anything; he took off his gloves to offer her a light; and he opened the safe himself, becoming the visible author of a theft he never profited from.
54. Why did such a careful man make those mistakes?
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Because she read him correctly in a few minutes: he is mild, he likes to please, he is afraid of prison, and he badly wanted to be let off — and he told her the last two himself.
55. Was Horace unfairly punished? Give both sides.
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He did break in, cut an alarm and intend to steal, so a sentence is hardly unjust. On the other hand he is convicted of a particular robbery he gained nothing from, while the woman who carried the jewels away is never even looked for.
56. What is Horace's own moral defence?
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That he is no threat to society, that he steals only from those with a lot of money, and that he does it for a very good reason.
57. How does the story answer that defence?
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Not by arguing. It lets his reasoning meet somebody who reasons the same way — and the person with the better argument simply takes everything.
58. Why is the title 'A Question of Trust' apt?
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It works twice: Horace trusts a stranger who is lying to him, and when he tells the exact truth nobody will trust him. Trust is the thing he gives away and the thing he cannot get.
59. What is ironic about the ending?
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A lock-maker is convicted by a safe he opened at somebody else's request; a man who steals to buy books ends up working among books he does not own; and a truthful account is dismissed as nonsense.
60. What does the story suggest about the phrase 'honour among thieves'?
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That it is sentimental nonsense. The only honour in the story is Horace's, and it is used against him.
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