Queen’s Bureau of Investigation by Ellery Queen Page A

found anything like this would have constituted an act of God. In January, with the trees stripped bare and the ground clear, it’s a different boiler of bass.”
    The package of money had been buried in a shallow pit at the base of a tree. But rains and winds had torn away the thin covering of dirt and leafmold, and both men had spotted the package at the same time, bulging soddenly out of the earth.
    Nature had been unkind to Anson Wheeler’s payroll. The brown paper in which it was wrapped had disintegrated under the action of soil and elements. Small animals and birds had evidently gnawed at rotting, mildewed, moldy bills. Insects had contributed to the wreckage. Most of the paper money was in unrecognizable, fused lumps and shreds.
    â€œIf there’s two thousand dollars in salvage left, including the silver,” muttered Wrightsville’s chief of police, “Anse is in luck. Only there ain’t.”
    â€œIt was that awfully hot Indian summer and this mild winter,” murmured Ellery. “Most of the damage was done before the ground hardened.” Ellery got to his feet. “Fortunately.”
    â€œFor who?”
    â€œFor Del Hood. This mass of corruption is going to keep young Delbert out of quad.”
    â€œWhat!”
    â€œUp to now I’ve only hoped the boy was innocent. Now I know it.”
    Chief Dakin stared at him. Then, bewilderedly, he squatted to examine the remains of the payroll, as if he had missed a clue buried in it somewhere.
    â€œBut I don’t see—!”
    â€œLater, Dakin. Right now we’d better use my topcoat to gather this filth up in. It’s evidence!”
    And when everyone was arranged to Ellery’s satisfaction, he looked about him and he said, “This one has the beautiful merit of simplicity.
    â€œLook.
    â€œRobber assaults Mr. Wheeler on the Ridge Road, snatches the payroll in its paper wrappings, and shortly thereafter buries the package in a very shallow pit in the woods not fifty yards from the scene of the robbery. This is last September I’m talking about.
    â€œNow a robber who buries his loot immediately after he’s stolen it either intends it as a temporary cache—till the first hue and cry blows over—or as a long-term hiding place … till the case is practically forgotten, say, or till he’s taken a world cruise, or served a prison term.
    â€œDid our robber mean that hole in the woods to be the hiding place of his loot for a short time, or a long time?
    â€œFor a short time,” said Ellery, answering himself, “obviously. No robber in his right mind would take fifteen thousand dollars in paper money, wrapped in paper wrappings, and bury it for any length of time. If he had the sense he was born with he’d know what he’d find when he came back—what, in fact, Chief Dakin and I did find—a soggy, eaten-up, chewed-away, soil-eroded, disintegrated wad of valueless pulp. For a long-time burial, he’d have provided himself with a weather-resistant, strong container of some sort, of metal or even of heavy wood.
    â€œOur robber, then, had nothing of the sort in mind. By burying the payroll in its perishable paper wrappings—in a shallow hole—he tells us that he intended it to lie there for a very short time. Perhaps only for hours, or at the most, days.
    â€œAs it turns out, he left it there for almost five months —until, as you see, it was practically destroyed. I ask the reasonable question: Why, after planning to retrieve it in a short time, did he leave it there to rot? Certainly at some period in the past five months it must have been perfectly safe for him to dig it up. In fact, he would have been safe any time after the first few days. Nobody’s been shadowed in this case—not even Del, out on bail. And the spot is a lonely one, well off the road in the woods. So again I ask: Why didn’t the robber come back for his loot? To