The Cabinet of Death was a prop used by Li H'sen Chang in his performances at the Palace Theatre. In 1889, he had the Fourth Doctor step inside it and he walked out again when it was turned around, much to the amusement of the audience who he was in full view of.
Chang then had his assistant, Lee, step inside and pushed swords through the cabinet in an act he claimed was called "the death of a thousand cuts" in China. His assistant was not inside and, when the cabinet opened, the body of Casey, who had died of shock, fell out. Henry Gordon Jago ordered that the curtain be dropped. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)
In 1968, after Doctor Evans had failed to produce a crystal that operated the time cabinet, Guinevere Godiva locked him in the Cabinet of Death and plunged a sword into it which killed him instantly. Jago and Litefoot later discovered the body after breaking into Godiva's collection of magical paraphernalia. (AUDIO: The Bloodchild Codex)