"I don't see the connection. Probably just because I've forgotten some details."
The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood -- and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror. (Edgar Allen Poe, Masque of the Red Death)
That only says that the red death was "besprinkled" with blood.
The modern perception of the figure of the Red Death being dressed all in red, wearing a weird hat and carrying a staff with a skull comes from the 1925 version of the Phantom of the Opera (starring Lon Chaney), in which The Phantom attends the ball dressed as the Red Death.
There's your connection. A three-linker, from Poe to Phantom of the Opera to the New Yorker