What's the name of that short story...

[jhmena]

There's a short story that I once read about a former safe cracker who was able to leave his life of crime behind. He got a new identity and became a respected individual in a different town. He was about to marry the daughter of a bank president and when he wanted to show off his new vault safe, one of his grandaughters accidentally was locked in the vault which would not open until the next morning. I think that they were afraid that she would suffocate overnight, and the only way out was if the vault could be opened quickly. The main character had to decide whether or not to use his superb safecracking skills to open the vault to save the little girl's life and risk revealing his previous identity as a bank robber. I don't want to describe the story any further so as not to spoil the ending, but does anyone know who wrote the story and what the title might be?

[AuntShecky]

Could that be "Jimmy Valentine" by O. Henry?

[jhmena]

It is Jimmy Valentine. Thank you very much.
I have another one. There's a short story that I read in the late 70's. It was in one of my textbooks for English. The title had the word 'shot' in it. I thought it might be The Sure Shot, or Sure Shot but I ran a search and cannot find it. It had to do with a sniper who works for the police department. On his day off he gets called to a situation. When he gets there he discovers that they called him because the hostage happened to be his daughter who worked at the bank, I think. The police sniper on duty is willing to do his job but wanted the father to okay it. They were friends as well. The father decides to take out the criminal himself. If he misses he might kill his own daughter. I hope you can help me with this one.

[MrParker]

The story is called "The Long Shot" by John Harris. Are you interested in getting a copy of it, still?

[Kishalay Ray]

There was another fascinating story : A famous Same making company created a super-safe Safe. To promote it, they called a press conference with Mayor, Police Chiefs persent, where a famous safe-cracker was to try his hand on the Safe. His reward on cracking was to be an envelope of 100Grand + his retainer. On the appointed day, the CEO of the Safe Co. placed envelope in the Safe in front of ALL in the PR event. The safecracker tried his level best to open the safe but failed, and went away glum faced. Safe company was super happy & celebrated success in front of press. After reaching Factory with super-safe safe, they opened & found an empty envelope with only a note - "I have now turned into a pickpocket".
Any idea whose story was this? I heard it in a Radio program long back.