A round dozen, from Edgar Allen Poe - "Thou Art the Man" (1844) - to Cornell Woolrich - "One Drop of Blood" (1962). Along the way there are offerings from such as Jacques Futrelle, who went down with the Titanic, Carter Dickson (aka John Dickson Carr), who didn't, Raymond Chandler, who sank under a sea of booze, and Ellery Queen, who was two people rolled into one. The Dickson - "The House in Goblin Wood" (1947) - is a typical locked room mystery; the Chandler - "The Pencil" (1959) - is the last bow from Philip Marlowe; while the Ellery Queen - "The Dauphin's Doll" (1948) - is as incomprehensible as more or less everything the duo wrote. A couple of my own favourites would be Melville Davisson Post's Uncle Abner story, "The Age of Miracles" (1916), where the wily old gent brings a miscreant to justice and restores a young girl's birthright, and T.S. Stribling's "The Shadow" (1934), with its mighty kick in the tail.
By Vincent Banville