Chapter 4 — A Question of Trust

The story is about Horace Danby, a lock-maker who steals from safes once a year to buy rare books. He is caught during a robbery at Shotover Grange when a young woman tricks him into opening the safe by pretending to be the lady of the house. She actually turns out to be a professional thief, and Horace is arrested for the jewel robbery when his fingerprints are found in the safe.

Horace Danby is a fifty-year-old, unmarried lock-maker who lives with a housekeeper. Although he appears to be a good, respectable, honest citizen, he is actually a professional safe-cracker who steals once a year to fund his passion for collecting rare, expensive books. He served a prison sentence fifteen years ago for his first robbery.

Horace steals to buy rare, expensive books that he loves. Each year he plans carefully, steals enough money to last for twelve months, and secretly purchases the books through an agent. Three interesting books were coming up for auction in autumn, which motivated him to rob the safe at Shotover Grange.

The woman catches Horace in the act of robbing the safe. Instead of calling the police, she claims to be the lady of the house and says she forgot the combination to the safe. She asks Horace to open it for her so she can retrieve her jewels to wear to a party that night. Horace, eager to avoid trouble and persuaded that she will let him go, removes his gloves and opens the safe for her.

The title is ironic. Horace's fatal mistake is placing trust in the woman and removing his gloves to help her open the safe. By trusting her story, he leaves his fingerprints all over the room, which leads to his arrest. The woman, being a professional thief herself, exploits his willingness to trust her for personal gain.

The irony is that Horace, a skilled and careful professional thief, is caught not for the robbery he planned but for helping the woman open the safe. His fingerprints are found inside the room because he removed his gloves to assist her. No one believes his story that the wife asked him to open the safe. The wife herself, described as a gray-haired, sharp-tongued woman of sixty, denies the entire story. Horace is imprisoned, while the actual thief (the woman) escapes.

The story explores themes of trust, betrayal, irony, and justice. It shows how trust can be misplaced and exploited, and how good intentions (or at least, the appearance of cooperation) can lead to punishment. The epigraph suggests 'you must set a thief to catch a thief,' illustrating how the woman, also a professional thief, outsmarts Horace through manipulation rather than force.

Horace is now the assistant librarian in the prison. He spends time thinking about the charming, clever young lady who tricked him. He becomes very angry when anyone talks about 'honour among thieves,' reflecting on how he was betrayed by someone in the same profession as himself.

The story uses irony as its primary device — Horace's downfall comes not from the robbery he planned but from his attempt to help another person. Foreshadowing appears in his hay fever, which causes him to sneeze and reveal his presence. The twist ending subverts reader expectations about who the real thief is. The woman's calmness and kindness contrast with her true identity as a manipulative thief.

Horace is caught because his fingerprints are found all over the drawing room, particularly on and around the safe. He had always been careful not to leave fingerprints during his robberies by wearing gloves, but this time he removed his gloves to open the safe for the woman. The woman used his fingerprints to frame him for the jewel robbery, while she escaped with the jewels undetected.

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