The story is a merging of three separate short stories, Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat," "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" and Robert Louis Stevenson's The Suicide Club, set within a story frame of a reporter's hunt for a crazy scientist.
This story is a composite work, blending three individual short stories: Poe's "The Black Cat," Stevenson's "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether," and Stevenson's "The Suicide Club." The reporter's pursuit of a mad scientist serves as the unifying element.