Solly Badrubal, who owns a film company, is persuaded to go along with a plan to kidnap his child star, Angelo Downey, in order to make a tax loss with the ransom payment. Angelo, however, makes a complete nuisance of himself and eventually makes sure that nobody gains except a bewildered clergyman.
This was the first (in publication order) of a series of stories about the Minerva Club, an association of fairly warm-hearted criminals. The others are The Trojan Crate,, Flint's Diamonds, Three Heads are better than one, and A Stroke of Genius.
Argosy, November 1961.
Reprinted as "The ransom of Angelo",
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine #236, July, 1963.
Included in The Minerva Club, the Department of Patterns and others, ed. John Higgins. USA, Crippen and Landru, 2009.
Included in The Minerva Club, Farrago Books, 2020.