A Question of Trust Class 10: NCERT PDF, Characters and Themes

This page is about A Question of Trust, Chapter 4 of the Class 10 English Supplementary Reader Footprints without Feet — a short crime story by Victor Canning, about six pages in the book. It opens with two sayings about thieves — “set a thief to catch a thief” and “honour among thieves” — and asks which one the tale illustrates.

The official a question of trust class 10 PDF is right below, followed by a plain retelling, the characters, and worked answers to every question the chapter prints.

Download the official NCERT chapter PDF

The official NCERT edition of the story is free to download. The link below opens the current PDF of Footprints without Feet, the Class 10 English Supplementary Reader in which Chapter 4, A Question of Trust, appears in full: a question of trust class 10 PDF (official NCERT).

The same file also sits inside the complete book on the NCERT website; this chapter link gets you straight to the story.

Chapter at a glance: what the NCERT file contains

Open the PDF and you will find a continuous short story, with the exercise blocks arranged around it. There are no diagrams or figures to walk through — the chapter is mainly text. The parts appear in this order:

• Two READ AND FIND OUT blocks — one before the story begins and one printed inside it, each asking comprehension questions to answer as you read.
• The story itself — the full narrative of Horace Danby’s robbery, from the opening sayings to the final line.
• GLOSSARY — the book defines hay fever here.
• Think about it — analytical questions on suspicion, deception and judgement.
• Talk about it — discussion questions on punishment and intentions.
• Suggested reading — further short stories on crime and judgement.

What this chapter covers: a short story about trust and theft

A Question of Trust is a crime story with a twist. Horace Danby, a locksmith, breaks into one safe a year to fund his hobby of collecting rare books. This year’s target is the jewels at Shotover Grange, until a young woman in red outwits him.

The title is ironic: the trust Horace places in her is exactly what destroys him. The story is framed by the two sayings about thieves, and the opening READ AND FIND OUT block asks which one the story illustrates.

The story retold in six steps

Here is the whole plot in plain words, from the yearly robbery to the arrest.

1. The habits of a careful thief. Horace Danby is about fifty, unmarried, and a successful locksmith with two helpers. Fifteen years ago he served his first and only prison sentence; since then he has robbed one safe a year, planning each job for weeks and spending the money on rare books bought secretly through an agent.
2. The plan at Shotover Grange. For two weeks he studies the house, its rooms, wiring, paths and garden. On the chosen July afternoon the two servants have gone to the movies. He takes the kitchen key from its hook, puts on gloves, and lets himself in. A dog named Sherry greets him and stays quiet when he calls it by name.
3. The safe and the alarm. The safe sits in the drawing room behind a rather poor painting. A magazine article had even printed a plan of the room and mentioned the painting. For a man who has lived with locks all his life, the safe is easy and the alarm poorly built — he goes into the hall to cut its wire.
4. Hay fever interrupts. A great bowl of flowers on the table triggers his hay fever. He sneezes as he works, and the smell of the flowers makes him sneeze again, until he is forced to bury his face in his handkerchief.
5. The young woman in red. A voice from the doorway asks, “What is it? A cold or hay fever?” The speaker is young, quite pretty, and dressed in red. She says she is the owner’s wife, has come back to collect her jewels for a party but has forgotten the numbers of the safe, and promises to let him go if he opens it.
6. The double betrayal. Within an hour Horace opens the safe, gives her the jewels, and leaves happily. Three days later a policeman arrests him: his fingerprints are all over the room, and the real wife — gray-haired and sixty — calls his story nonsense. The young woman, the ending reveals, was a thief like him.

The twist, explained: who the young woman really is

The twist is easy to miss on a first read, because the story never says openly that the woman is a fraud until the final paragraph. Work through the evidence it plants:

• The descriptions clash. The woman in the doorway is young, quite pretty, and dressed in red. The real wife, who appears at the end, is a gray-haired, sharp-tongued woman of sixty.
• The gloves come off. Eager to please her, Horace removes his gloves to light her cigarette and never puts them back on. That is why his fingerprints end up all over the room.
• She controls the conversation. She never raises an alarm or calls for help; instead she turns the situation into a transaction — open the safe, and you go free.
• The final paragraph names her profession. Horace thinks of “the charming, clever young lady who was in the same profession as he was, and who tricked him.” She is a fellow thief who used him.

This is where “honour among thieves” collapses: she shows Horace no loyalty at all, and leaves him to take the blame.

Characters: Horace Danby, the young woman and the real wife

The story puts three people in Horace’s path. The table sets them side by side.

NCERT’s description of Horace — “good and respectable — but not completely honest” — is apt because his dishonesty is narrow and deliberate. In daily life he is a reliable businessman, gentle with the dog, and against violence.

When he threatens the woman, he at once admits he was only trying to frighten her. But once a year he steals, carefully and without guilt, because he tells himself his motive excuses the act. That self-justification is exactly what the Talk about it questions ask you to judge.

The two sayings that frame the story

The opening page poses the two sayings as a question, and the story answers it. Here is how each saying maps to the events:

• “You must set a thief to catch a thief” — this is the saying the story illustrates. Only another thief could deceive Horace so completely. The young woman reads his fear of prison, flatters him, and catches him where the police could not.
• “There is honour among thieves” — shown to be false. The young woman betrays Horace entirely: she takes the jewels and lets him face the police. The story’s last line is the punchline — Horace grows angry whenever anyone speaks of honour among thieves.

So the title is ironic in the same way: the trust Horace places in the woman is repaid with betrayal.

READ AND FIND OUT: answers to the chapter’s questions

These are the four questions printed in the two READ AND FIND OUT blocks. Model answers follow, in a student’s own words rather than the book’s.

1. What does Horace Danby like to collect? Rare, expensive books. He buys them secretly through an agent, so nobody connects his hobby to his yearly robberies.
2. Why does he steal every year? One carefully planned robbery gives him enough to last twelve months, and he will not risk more than that. He has kept to this pattern since the prison sentence he served fifteen years ago.
3. Who is speaking to Horace Danby? A young woman in red who claims to be the owner’s wife. The ending reveals that she is actually a thief who has tricked him into opening the safe.
4. Who is the real culprit in the story? The young woman. She leaves with the jewels and disappears, while Horace — whose fingerprints are everywhere — is arrested for the robbery.

Think about it: how to answer the four analysis questions

The four Think about it questions have no fixed model answers, but each expects you to name a moment in the story and explain it. Here is a line of argument for each.

1. When did you suspect she was not the owner’s wife?

There is no single correct moment; the clues build up. She is too amused and too calm for someone who has just found a burglar, and she knows the dog by name.

Most suspicious of all, she has “forgotten” the numbers of her own safe — convenient if you are a thief, implausible if you are the owner. A good answer names one such moment and quotes the sentence that made you pause.

2. What subtle ways does she use to deceive him? Why doesn’t he suspect?

Her deception works through kindness and flattery. She reacts with amusement, not fear, so Horace hopes to talk his way out of trouble. She says she has always liked “the wrong kind of people,” flattering him onto her side. The invented story about the bank and the party makes opening the safe seem like a favour, not a crime.

Horace does not suspect because he is desperate to escape and quietly proud of his skill. Every part of her story tells him what he wants to hear, and nothing in it alarms him until it is too late.

3. Why is “good and respectable — but not completely honest” apt?

The phrase fits because Horace’s honesty is real but limited. He works hard, worries his housekeeper, treats the dog kindly, and hates prison and violence. But once a year he steals deliberately, choosing victims who can afford the loss and never feeling guilty.

He cannot be called a typical thief because he does not steal for greed or need. He steals only to buy books, only from the rich, and exactly once a year.

4. Where did Horace go wrong?

His mistakes happen in order, and each one is a break from his own careful routine:

1. He lets the hay fever shake his routine. The sneezing reveals him — the woman hears him “from the top of the house” — and he is caught off guard.
2. He takes off his gloves to light her cigarette. His one fixed rule — never leave fingerprints — is abandoned to please a stranger.
3. He opens the safe without gloves. That single lapse is what convicts him; his fingerprints end up all over the room.
4. He trusts a stranger without checking her story. He never questions whether she is really the owner’s wife, even though a wife who has “forgotten” her own safe’s numbers should have struck him as odd.

Each mistake on its own might not have mattered. Together they hand the young woman the jewels and give the police the evidence they need.

Talk about it: arguing both sides of the punishment question

Both questions are debates with defensible answers on either side. The textbook wants your judgement, clearly stated and defended with the story.

1. Do you think Horace Danby was unfairly punished?

• He deserved what he got. Horace did break into Shotover Grange, cut the alarm wire, and open a safe that was not his. The law punishes the act, and being tricked does not make the burglary less real.
• He was unfairly punished. He was convicted for a theft from which he gained nothing: the jewels went to the woman who tricked him, the real culprit escaped, and Horace took the blame for her crime as well as his own.

2. Do intentions justify actions?

This is the story’s own test case, because Horace believes his motive — books, not greed — excuses the theft. One argument says intentions tell us about a person’s character but do not change the act: both Horace and the young woman stole, and both motives were self-serving.

The opposing argument is that the story deliberately invites sympathy for Horace because his motive is sympathetic, and asks whether the law should care. A strong personal response states your position first, supports it with one story example, and acknowledges the other side.

Key words: hay fever and culprit

The chapter has one GLOSSARY entry, and one word that unlocks the second READ AND FIND OUT question. Both are used in answers more often than students realise.

Hay fever

The GLOSSARY defines hay fever as a disorder affecting the nose and throat, caused by allergy to pollen or dust. In this story it is a plot device. The flowers in the drawing room trigger his sneezing, and it is a sneeze that reveals him.

The hay fever keeps breaking his careful routine at exactly the wrong moments — he sneezes as he works, returns from cutting the alarm wire and sneezes again, and finally has to bury his face in his handkerchief. The woman’s first question to him is, “What is it? A cold or hay fever?”

Culprit

A culprit is the person responsible for a crime. The second READ AND FIND OUT block asks, “Who is the real culprit in the story?” — the chapter’s way of checking whether you read the ending carefully.

The answer is the young woman, not Horace. She planned the deception, took the jewels, and left him to be caught.

Common mistakes students make with this chapter

These are the specific errors that lose marks in answers about this chapter. Each comes with the correction and a quick way to check your own answer.

Exam notes: how A Question of Trust is usually tested

Textbook contents and the examinable syllabus are not always identical — check the current official CBSE syllabus to see which chapters are examinable for your session.

Within the chapter’s own exercises, the question patterns are fairly steady:

• READ AND FIND OUT — short, recall-level answers: the collection, the yearly motive, the speaker’s identity, the culprit.
• Think about it — analytical answers that need a stated reason anchored in a specific story moment.
• Talk about it — value-based answers where your opinion, defended with evidence, is the whole point.

The two framing sayings and the irony of the title are the ideas examiners return to, because the whole plot turns on them.

Revision summary: the story in ten lines

Ten lines for the night before. Each line is one unit of the plot or theme — no new information, only consolidation.

• The story opens by asking which saying fits the tale: “set a thief to catch a thief” or “honour among thieves.”
• Horace Danby, fifty, a locksmith, robs one safe a year to buy rare books.
• This year: about fifteen thousand pounds’ worth of jewels at Shotover Grange.
• The servants are at the movies; the alarm is poorly built and easily cut.
• A bowl of flowers triggers his hay fever, and his sneezes give him away.
• A young woman in red appears and claims to be the owner’s wife.
• She says she has forgotten the safe’s numbers and asks him to open it.
• He takes off his gloves to light her cigarette — then opens the safe bare-handed.
• His fingerprints convict him; the real wife, sixty, denies his story.
• The woman was a thief like him. Horace ends as the prison’s assistant librarian, angry at any mention of honour among thieves.

Related resources

This listing is maintained for the 2026-27 academic session using the NCERT textbook information available to us. NCERT remains the authority for confirming the latest edition.

In the book, A Question of Trust follows “The Midnight Visitor” and is followed by the title story “Footprints without Feet.” Around this site, these pages are the closest neighbours:

• Class 10 English notes — the hub for the First Flight and Footprints without Feet chapters.
• Glimpses of India — a related First Flight chapter from the same Class 10 book.
• Two Stories about Flying — a related First Flight chapter.
• Other Class 10 notes — subjects and chapters across the class.
• The main CBSE notes directory — if you are revising across classes.

The textbook’s Suggested reading list points to more short stories on crime and judgement: “The Unexpected” by Ella Edkin, “The Confession” by Anton Chekhov, and “A Case for the Defence” by Graham Greene.

Sources and data verification

This page describes NCERT Class 10 English, Footprints without Feet (Supplementary Reader), Chapter 4, “A Question of Trust” by Victor Canning. The textbook, its official editions and its free PDFs are published by NCERT on ncert.nic.in, and the download link above points to that site; this page does not host the file itself.

What NCERT publishes is the textbook; what CBSE prescribes is the examinable syllabus. The page is maintained for the current academic session using NCERT’s official material, and where the two differ, the current official CBSE syllabus is the authority on what is examinable.

Chapter-wise notes for this subject are not published yet. The unit-wise syllabus on this page is complete and verified against the official CBSE curriculum document.

Reference: NCERT Class 10 English Footprints without Feet textbook, chapter 4, official edition on ncert.nic.in.

FAQs

Who is the real culprit in A Question of Trust Class 10?

The real culprit is the young woman in red. She pretends to be the owner’s wife, tricks Horace into opening the safe, and leaves with the jewels while Horace is arrested. The story’s final paragraph identifies her: she was a thief “in the same profession as he was.”

Why does Horace Danby steal every year in A Question of Trust?

He steals to buy rare, expensive books. One carefully planned robbery a year gives him enough money to last twelve months, and he will not risk more than that.

What does Horace Danby like to collect in A Question of Trust?

Rare, expensive books. He buys them secretly through an agent so that nobody connects his hobby to his yearly robberies.

What is the meaning of honour among thieves in A Question of Trust?

The saying claims that criminals stand by one another. The story tests it and finds it false: the young woman, a fellow thief, betrays Horace completely and leaves him to take the blame. That is why the closing lines say Horace grows angry whenever anyone talks about honour among thieves.

Why was Horace Danby arrested even though the lady asked him to open the safe?

Because the lady was not the owner’s wife. He had opened the safe without gloves — he removed them to light her cigarette — so his fingerprints were all over the room, and the real wife, sixty years old, denied his story. With no one to back his account, the fingerprints convicted him.

Who wrote A Question of Trust, Chapter 4 of Footprints without Feet?

Victor Canning. His name appears at the end of the story in the NCERT book.