The Suicide Club is a collection of three 19th century detective fiction short stories by Robert Louis Stevenson that combine to form a single narrative. First published in the London Magazine in 1878, they were collected and republished in the first volume of the New Arabian Nights. The trilogy introduces the characters of Prince Florizel of Bohemia and his sidekick Colonel Geraldine. In this cycle they infiltrate a secret society of people intent on losing their lives. It has been described as: "The Prince's investigation of the macabre club and its criminally inclined president makes for one of Stevenson’s most exciting and suspenseful tales." The cycle has been adapted for stage, film and television on a number of occasions. Plot summary The three short stories that form this cycle are as follows. Story of the Young Man with the Cream Tarts The story is set in Victorian London, where Prince Florizel of Bohemia and Colonel Geraldine roam in search of adventure. They dine incognito in a London oyster bar where they are surprised to be accosted by a young man distributing cream tarts for free. Intrigued by this idiosyncratic behaviour they invite him to dinner where he reveals the existence of the Suicide Club, for men who want to end their lives, but are not capable of doing that, or do not want to shock their relatives by their suicide. Florizel and Geraldine claim to want to end their lives too, and become members. It turns out that during each gathering of the club two members, excluding the president, are selected at random: one who will be killed, and one to do the killing; the president then instructs the person to be killed where to go, and the killer how to do the killing in such a way that it looks like an accident. Florizel and Geraldine are appalled by the first killing since their membership, and even more by the fact that the second time Florizel is selected to be killed. Geraldine saves him and arranges that servants of Florizel capture the club members. Florizel decides to help the club members to become happy, but also to dispatch the president abroad in the custody of Geraldine’s younger brother, to be killed by the latter. Story of the Physician and the Saratoga Trunk The second story in the cycle is set in the Latin Quarter of Paris where an American