Padgett Takes Millie Hostage and Threatens to Push Her from the Lighthouse

Padgett Takes Millie Hostage and Threatens to Push Her from the Lighthouse is the crisis that turns the search for evidence into an immediate rescue attempt. When Kate Miskin and Francis Benton-Smith realize Padgett has seen them, he flees; a brief delay at the house and an unexpected encounter with Jago fail to stop him. At the Combe Island lighthouse, he seizes Millie Tranter and places her outside the gallery rail, where a narrow ledge leaves her exposed above the people trying to help.

Discovery and Escape

Kate and Francis Benton-Smith are at the house handling exhibits when a fleeting face appears at the kitchen window. They cannot identify it with certainty at first, but catch two terrified eyes and a shorn head. The sight abruptly interrupts the careful work of photographing and securing evidence. Kate has the keys, yet loses precious seconds trying to open the door: Padgett has blocked it from the other side with his own key. Francis breaks a stuck window with a chair, and the pair get out by different routes. Kate tells Francis to pursue Padgett because he is faster, while she gathers the camera and murder case before following through the window.

That division of labor reflects the urgency of the moment. The exhibits must be protected even as the suspect is escaping, and the blocked door turns a routine exit into an obstacle that costs the pursuers time. Padgett is already sprinting toward the sea when Francis catches sight of him. The pursuit does not end at the shore: the lighthouse becomes the destination, and the place where the danger changes from flight to hostage-taking.

The Race to the Lighthouse

Padgett would have disappeared from view during the delay, but Jago suddenly rounds the corner of the house and collides with him. Both men fall. Before the dazed Jago can get up, Padgett is on his feet and running again. Francis follows about thirty yards behind; Kate sees the chase as she crests a mound and realizes that they have arrived too late to prevent what follows.

Millie is walking around the edge of the lighthouse when Padgett reaches her. The narration holds the instant of recognition in suspension: Kate sees the two men racing toward them and Millie standing still, wide-eyed with amazement. Padgett scoops Millie up and throws her through the lighthouse door. By the time Kate and Francis reach it, they hear Millie scream and the bolt slide home. The sudden change is stark: the chase had offered the possibility of catching Padgett, but the locked door puts Millie inside his control and leaves the pursuers outside.

Millie on the Ledge

The danger becomes visible from below when a high scream draws the assembled group’s attention upward. Padgett has lifted Millie over the gallery rail. She is standing on the outside ledge, no more than six inches wide, clutching the rail and shrieking while he holds her by the arm. He shouts, but the breeze carries his words away; the people below can see his actions without hearing what he demands.

Padgett slowly edges Millie along the ledge toward the seaward curve of the lighthouse. The movement makes the threat concrete without requiring an audible explanation: she is exposed above the ground, her footing is precarious, and Padgett controls her progress. The group below follows, hardly daring to look up. Mrs. Burbridge moans and sinks down with her face in her hands, while Roughtwood gasps. Their reactions show that the threat is witnessed collectively, even though no one below can immediately reach Millie.

The Response and Its Limits

Kate tries to impose order rather than let alarm govern the response. She instructs Francis to put the exhibits in the safe, fetch Jago, and find two ladders, one tall and one shorter for the lower windows. Francis returns to report that the evidence is secured and Jago is coming with the ladders; he also warns that if Padgett takes Millie up to the gallery, no ladder will reach him. Kate sends someone to help Jago manage the longer ladder, which requires two people to handle.

The scene ends with the rescue still unresolved. The evidence has been secured, but that success does not bring Millie within reach; meanwhile, the ladders offer a practical response whose usefulness is limited by the lighthouse’s height and Padgett’s position. The episode shifts the immediate stakes from pursuit and proof to Millie’s safety. Its suspense comes from the contrast between the group’s purposeful activity below and the narrow ledge on which Padgett is moving her, while the lost seconds at the house continue to shape what the rescuers can do.