Some Classic Short Stories

This site is not concerned so much with short stories (except as collections, such as Sherlock Holmes or Father Brown), but there are some one-of-a-kind ones that well deserve mention:

• Jorge Luis Borges -- The Garden of Forking Paths, Death and the Compass, and a few others that might fall within the detective story category. Marvellously succinct author, doesn't have to write a full novel, just provides a plot outline, and that's all you really need with this brilliant writer -- every sentence reverberates with meaning.
• John Dickson Carr -- The Gentleman from Paris: uses Edgar A. Poe in a unique way (see my web page on Carr for his other short stories).
• Harry Kemelman -- The Nine-Mile Walk: the perfect 'armchair deduction' story; a whole skein of deductive reasoning exposing a crime based on a simple overheard phrase.
• Robert Barr -- The Absent-Minded Coterie: a take-off on Holmes's The Red-Headed League, but a classic in its own sense (Eugene Valmont as a conceited contrast to SH).
• Ellery Queen -- The Lamp of God: the ultimate impossible-crime story; an entire house vanishes (but a typical EQ trick, given his use of very eccentric Howard Hughes types somewhere along the line -- this is much more fun in short-story format than at novel length).