Question for the Holmesians

Just because I have about 10 other critical things that require my brainpower and effort doesn't mean that I'm not above asking questions about completely unrelated issues. So:


QUESTION FOR THE HOLMESIANS: Which 1 to 3 short stories would you recommend to people who want to start reading canon? (And why - because you like it, because you think it has specific objective merit, because it's the most exciting, explains the characters the best, etc.)


I have an idea percolating in the back of my head...

clarifying previous post

Sorry, can't edit on email posting, and don't have actual LJ access here.

Novels will not work for what I have in mind. Long story short-ish, when I asked other members of Watson's Tin Box to bring me old copies of canon as they traded up so I could give them out at 221BCon to people who hadn't read any Holmes yet, someone gave me $5 for the cause. And it turns out that Dover publishing does a little $2.50 book with 4 of the stories in it, so I ordered two of 'em.
But it's got Dancing Men and Dying Detective, the first of which I think is awfully depressing to start a person out with and the other I'm just not fond of.

Also, packing randomly sized used books in my suitcase is a bear. Something easier to pack and lighter to carry would be nice - but it turns out that Stanford's wonderful archive of single-story booklets is down - also, they're kind of a weird size so they'd need specialty copying and trimming.

So... why not poll the canon fans to find the best gateway short stories, pick the ones that are mentioned the most often and make a little booklet for next year's 221BCon?

So they've got to be short stories, and they've got to *not be* in Casebook because that's still under copyright here.

Arguably, anything referenced in Sherlock or Elementary ought to be high on the list; eliminating the novels leaves SCAN, FINA, THOR & CHAS