The Cat’s Paw, a novel by Clarence Budington Kelland, had appeared in the Saturday Evening Post from August 26-September 30, 1933, when Lloyd read it, and decided to buy the rights to it for $25,000.

Ezekiel Cobb, a naive young man raised by missionaries in China, is sent to the United States to seek a wife.

He turns the table on them, however, by enlisting the help of his friends in the local Chinese community, who help him kidnap the corrupt politicians and their hoodlum backers, detaining them in the "cellar of Tien Wang."

When the second man is taken to the back room, it is shown that Cobb has enlisted the help of The Great Chang a famous Chinese magician on his first American tour, and that they are using his tricks to fake the executions.

In an early scene, Cobb, as a young boy newly arrived in China, is given a book written by Ling Po.