Here comes another hidden treasure mystery. “The Mysterious Black Ledger” was an interesting twist on the trope – criminals searched Ellery, but here we return to Ellery searching for treasure hidden by a recently deceased ne’er-do-well.
This one, though, is somewhat lackluster. The police show up at the crime scene after the hidden money has been removed, with only a corpse left behind. Ellery finds the emptied hole which had hidden $62,000 for ten years, realizes only one person could have been let into the hotel room, and has her arrested. Simple. Done. Nothing left but to cash the hefty check from This Week, which is where this story, (based on the 1946 radio show, “The Man Who Waited”) originally appeared, in the March 20, 1952 issue.
Reading Ellery Queen 