This was the first of a series of stories about the Minerva Club, an association of warm-hearted criminals. The others are The Trojan Crate, Flint's Diamonds, Three Heads are better than one, and A Stroke of Genius.
Soly 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. Angelo, however, makes a complete nuisance of himself and eventually makes sure that nobody gains except a bewildered clergyman.
Argosy, November 1961.
Reprinted as "The ransom of Angelo", Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine #236, July, 1963.