A Retrieved Reformation

Jimmy Valentine was busy stitching shoes in the prison workshop when a guard came to fetch him. The governor had signed a pardon. After ten months of a four-year sentence, Jimmy was free.

In the warden's office, he was given a few dollars, a train ticket and a piece of advice. Go straight, the warden told him. You're not a bad fellow at heart. Stop cracking safes and live honestly.

Jimmy looked surprised. He had never cracked a safe in his life, he said, with a perfectly straight face.

The suitcase

The first thing Jimmy did as a free man was to eat a proper meal. The second was to go to his old room above a café, where everything was just as he had left it.

From under the floor, he pulled out a dusty suitcase. Inside lay the finest set of burglar's tools in the East: drills, clamps, punches and tools of his own design, made of special steel. He looked at them fondly.

A week later, a safe was robbed in Richmond, Indiana. There was no clue at all. Then another in Logansport. Then a bank in Jefferson City. Each time the safe was opened neatly and quickly, as if by magic.

A detective named Ben Price studied the work and nodded. He knew that style. Jimmy Valentine was back in business. And this time, Ben Price said, Jimmy was going to serve the whole of his sentence.

A new name

One afternoon, a young man with a suitcase stepped off a train in the little town of Elmore, Arkansas. As he walked towards the hotel, he passed a young woman going into the bank on the corner.

Jimmy Valentine looked into her eyes, and forgot who he was.

She was Annabel Adams, the daughter of the man who owned the bank.

Jimmy took a room at the hotel and gave his name as Ralph D. Spencer. He said he was looking for a place to start a business. The town had no proper shoe shop, so he opened one.

A year in Elmore

The shoe shop did well. Mr. Ralph Spencer was honest, cheerful and well liked. He made friends all over town. And he won the heart of Annabel Adams.

A year after he arrived, they were engaged to be married. Her family loved him.

One evening, Jimmy sat down and wrote a letter to an old friend. He said he had given up the old life completely. He was marrying the finest girl in the world, and he would not touch another man's money again for a million dollars. He asked his friend to meet him, so that he could hand over his old tools. He would have no more use for them.

On the same day, a quiet stranger arrived in Elmore and watched the shoe shop from across the street. It was Ben Price.

The vault

The next morning, Jimmy was going with the Adams family to the bank. He was carrying his old suitcase, ready to take it out of town.

Mr. Adams was proud of his bank's new vault. It had a heavy steel door with a modern time lock, and he showed it to everyone. Annabel's married sister had come too, with her two little daughters, May and Agatha.

While the grown-ups were talking, the children played near the vault. Then, in a game, Agatha was shut inside. The heavy door swung closed, and the bolts shot home.

The banker tugged at the handle in horror. The lock had not been set, and the clock had not been wound. There was no way to open it. No locksmith in town could do it, and it would take hours to bring one from the city. Inside, there was very little air. They could hear the little girl crying in the dark.

The choice

Annabel turned to Jimmy, her eyes full of fear. Couldn't he do something?

Jimmy looked at her with a strange, gentle smile. He asked her for the rose she was wearing. She gave it to him, puzzled. He put it in his waistcoat pocket.

Then he took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, opened the old suitcase and laid out his shining tools.

At that moment, Ralph D. Spencer was gone. Jimmy Valentine was at work.

In a few minutes, faster than he had ever done it before, the great steel door swung open. Agatha ran out into her mother's arms.

The detective

Jimmy put his coat back on and walked towards the door. He knew exactly who was standing there.

Ben Price was leaning by the entrance.

Jimmy greeted him quietly. He said he supposed they could go now, and that it did not matter much anymore.

Ben Price looked at him for a long moment. Then he said that he thought Mr. Spencer must be mistaken. He did not believe he recognised him. And wasn't that Mr. Spencer's carriage waiting outside?

Then the detective turned and walked away down the street.

About this story

O. Henry (1862–1910) was the pen name of William Sydney Porter, the American master of short stories with surprise endings. He himself spent time in prison, where he began writing seriously. This story was first published in 1903 and later collected in Roads of Destiny (1909). This version is a shortened, simplified retelling.