Miss Marple (TV series) In addition to Miss Marple, there are two semi-regular characters in the series. The first is Inspector (later Superintendent) Slack, played by David Horovitch; the second is Constable (later Sergeant) Lake, played by Ian Brimble. Slack and Lake appear in five episodes: "The Body in the Library", "The Murder at the Vicarage", "4.50 From Paddington", "They Do It with Mirrors" and "The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side". They are the official detectives and both (particularly Slack) originally dislike and are exasperated by Miss Marple, her interference and her methods, but they eventually come to respect (and indeed, in the
Miss Marple nephew ("A Caribbean Mystery", 1964). She is not herself from the aristocracy or landed gentry, but is quite at home among them and would probably have been happy to describe herself as "genteel"; indeed, a "gentlewoman". Miss Marple may thus be considered a female version of that staple of British detective fiction, the gentleman detective. She demonstrates a remarkably thorough education, including some art courses that involved study of human anatomy through the study of human cadavers. In "They Do It with Mirrors" (1952), it is revealed that Miss Marple grew up in a cathedral close, and that she studied