A QUESTION OF TRUST

Question 1.
What do you think is the meaning of the phrase ‘honour among thieves’? Which of the
two thieves lack the honour?
OR
Which of the two thieves lacked ‘honour’ in the story ‘A Question of Trust’?
Answer:
“There is honour among Thieves” means that ‘dishonest people may have certain
standards of behaviour which they will respect’. The young lady pretended to be the
owner of the house and innocently asked Horace Danby to-open the safe as she would
need the jewels to wear to the party that day. Horace Danby found himself trapped in a
tricky situation and could not make out how to escape. He readily opened the safe
unwittingly leaving his fingerprints. He was arrested and nobody believed that the lady
of the house asked him to open the safe.

Question 2.
At times we keep on planning things but our plans fail, we are not always responsible
for the failure. Explain with reference to the story ‘A Question of Trust’.
OR
In the story ‘A Questions of Trust’, Horace Danby carefully planned his theft, but was
outwitted by another thief‘The lady in red’. Would you agree that over confidence may
prove fatal one day? Discuss.
Answer:
It is true that we keep on planning things in our life. We wish thing would materialise as
we had planned but Man proposes God disposes. Horace Danby was a very careful
planner. He made all plans very carefully before the robbery. He drew picture of wirihg
of electricity and even took every efforts of befriending pets. But fate had planned
something different. Lady in red turned out to be smarter and duped him. Horace,
without any suspicion, opened the safe without gloves. This mistake landed him in
prison. So one lesson that we learn that we should not trust anyone.

Question 3.
“Lying and stealing are next door neighbours”. Comment.
Answer:
A path of truthfulness and honesty is always better than an easy path of deceit. Horace
Danby was a thief, he robbed safe every year. But, in the end he was be fooled by
another thief and was arrested by the police. Stealing or lying cannot bring happiness or
success. A truthful and honest person always leads a happy and peaceful life. He does
not have to live with any kind of guilt. Stealing or lying robs one of peace. Those who
are honest do not live a life of tension and are able to get peace of mind too.

Question 4.
Our sins never go unpunished. Horace Danby ultimately had to go to prison. This shows
that inspite of planning a crime intelligently and carefully a criminal can’t escape the law
— Explain / discuss.
Answer:
A path of truthfulness and honesty is always better than an easy path of deceit. Horace
Danby was a thief, he robbed safe every year. But, in the end he was befooled by
another thief and was arrested by the police. Stealing or lying cannot bring happiness or
success. A truthful and honest person always leads a happy and peaceful life. He does
not have to live with any kind of guilt. Stealing or lying robs one of peace. Those who
are honest do not live a life of tension and are able to get peace of mind too.

Question 5.
“Horace Danby was clever but the young woman was cleverer”. Discuss.
OR
How did the lady in red turn out to be smarter than Horace Danby?
Answer:
Horace Danby was a cleaver thief. He lived a life of a respectable and successful
businessman. He used to make locks. He was fond of rare and expensive books. He did
not have enough money to buy these books. He used to rob a safe for this once in an
year. He was very clever. He made his plan in such a way that he was never caught. He
spent a lot of time in planning his mission. He never left any sign of theft but the lady
who was another thief proved herself cleverer than Danby. She was a great actress as
well.

She pretended to be the owner of the house. She tricked Danby who opened the safe
for her and ‘ handed over the jewels. Horace was so nervous that he did not realise that
he had no gloves in his hand. The lady had no tools, no gloves but managed to rob the
safe without leaving any evidence against her. Thus, we can say that the lady was
cleverer than Danby.

Question 6.
Did you begin to suspect, before the end of the story, that the lady was not the person
Horace Danby took her to be? If so, at what point did you realize this, and how?
Answer:
Yes, one does begin to suspect before the end of the story that the lady was not the
person Horace Danby took her to be. She was unusually calm on seeing Horace. This
seemed strange enough. When she did not call the police, and instead asked Horace to
break open the safe and take out all the jewels from it. It seemed suspicious. Moreover,
it also seemed unlikely that she would forget the code to open the safe. Therefore, it
was evident, before the story ended, that she was not the person Horace had taken her
to be.