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MARIA BLACK, M.A.

DETECTIVES OF FICTION: JOHN SLATE Tells How He Invented the Character of His School-Ma’am Sleuth—

Miss Maria Black was conceived in my mind out of no more than a memory—a childhood memory of a distant relative with the commanding manner of a general and the logical mind of an analyst. She underwent modifications and alterations in the course of her development, until she emerged as an elderly headmistress with a fund of knowledge, of psychological insight and, above all, understanding of human nature.

That a lady supervising a successful girls’ college should also possess all the attributes of a keen student of crime seemed at first too much to expect; and if Maria had remained a “straight” character she would probably not have got beyond the first hurdle. But by infusing some humor into the situation I could easily imagine Miss Maria being so human in herself as to sneak off to enjoy her favorite pastime when nobody was looking. Hence her clandestine visits to the local cinema where crime films hold sway, and her ruling that none of her pupils should go there in case they see her in the one-and-nines!

The name of Maria Black was suggested by another of my relatives, and such I christened her once I saw that the beauty of the name lies in its reversibility, especially among schoolgirls looking for an alternative to “The Beak”. Then, one can hardly dissociate a “black maria” from a police van, which is suggestive of criminals brought to book.

Maria’s first appearance, in BLACK MARIA, M.A., took her to America, where she encountered that contrasting character “Pulp” Martin, a gentlemanly tough from the Bowery. I became so fond of him that he continued to act as Maria’s bodyguard in her later adventures, doing for her the sort of work she cannot do herself while preserving her dignity. His flamboyance, his foul cigarettes and atrocious suits, serve to offset her straight-backed frigidity and strengthen the humor which is a dominant strain in the Maria novels.

In MARIA MARCHES ON, second of the series, the dirty work took place within the noble pile of Roseway College for Young Ladies, and I sensed the danger of limiting her activities to these precincts. Then it became obvious that the nearby village had possibilities; and so a cinema and a stretch of adjacent countryside became venues for crime, while in ONE REMAINED SEATED and THY ARM ALONE appeared another character who, by his almost incredible obtuseness, helped to underline Maria’s perspicacity. Inspector “Eyebrows” Morgan is not, I hope, typical of a village police inspector: he is, rather, a caricature of one, deliberately overdrawn to extract all the humor it is possible to extract from a story of crime.

In her latest exploit, DEATH IN SILHOUETTE, Maria contrives to break free of both college and environs to investigate the suicide of a young man engaged to one of her former pupils. With her again, inevitably, is “Pulp” Martin; and as in all her cases, Maria uses quite conventional means to achieve her effects. Scorning the elaborate paraphernalia of the professional detective, she is always careful to stay on her own side of the fence while assisting justice to assert itself. When she cannot prove a point by forensic methods she shames the professional into doing it and so gains her end, her strong suit being the biting sarcasm she employs when the ponderous juggernaut of the law misses the mark.

—John Russell Fearn