To Find Help

Originally Aired: January 6, 1949

Suspense #322, "To Find Help," stars Ethel Barrymore as Mrs. Gillis, an elderly widow living alone with her maid Sarah and her aging dog. When a mild-mannered young man named Howard Wilton appears at her door seeking odd jobs, Mrs. Gillis hires him to do heavy cleaning work despite warnings from her roomer, Mr. Armstrong. At first, Howard seems harmless enough, but his behavior quickly becomes unsettling. He obsesses over keeping his coat safe from moths, barely makes progress on the floor he's supposed to be cleaning, and grows increasingly agitated when Mrs. Gillis checks on his work.

The situation grows more disturbing when Howard accuses Mrs. Gillis of hating him because he wasn't in military service like her two sons, both of whom served and are memorialized in photographs around her home. His paranoid outbursts escalate, and he finally reveals the chilling reason he was rejected from the army: they found something wrong with his mind. Now Mrs. Gillis finds herself trapped in her isolated home with an unstable stranger, desperately hoping to find help before the situation turns dangerous.