First published in The Pall Mall Gazette in December 1884, its characters were based on criminals in the employ of the surgeon Robert Knox (1791–1862) around the time of the notorious Burke and Hare murders in 1828.
Their duties included taking receipt of bodies for dissection and paying the pair of shifty and suspicious men who supplied them.
Although Fettes is now certain that his friend has committed murder, Macfarlane again convinces him to keep his silence, persuading him that if he is not courageous enough to perform such manly deeds as these, then he will end up as just another victim.
The film was produced by Val Lewton and directed by Robert Wise, and starred Boris Karloff, Henry Daniell and Bela Lugosi.
A television film was made of the story in 1966, directed by Toby Robertson, broadcast as the second episode of Mystery and Imagination.