A psychopathic companion-housekeeper strangles her employer, a retired actress, to prevent the institutionalization of the her two mentally ill sisters. Set in a lonely mansion on the Thames estuary.

Fired from her job, reporter Ann Mitchell invents a fictitious "John Doe" to write an idealistic letter threatening suicide in protest of social ills. The public response to the letter is so enormous that Ann's newspaper rehires her and hires an out-of-work baseball player, John Willoughby to play the part of John Doe. He enters into the hoax for the money but ultimately rebels against the evil, self-serving despots who attempt to further their own...