P is for Proof

At the end of A Halloween Homicide, the perpetrator challenges Joe, “You can’t prove one word of this,” to which Joe responds, “No I can’t, but I don’t need to. The police will do that.”

In most detective mysteries, the crime is murder, and in the UK that demands proof beyond reasonable doubt. In real life, the police have an army of scientific methods available to them in order to establish the proof, backed up by statements from witnesses and sometimes, confessions from the accused.

Joe, Sheila, Brenda and their ilk, don’t have such resources, so their deductions are based on observation and conflict of evidence. In The Filey Connection, someone was not where they had claimed to be, in A Murder for Christmas, someone left a trivial, but vital piece of evidence where they shouldn’t, and in the The I-Spy Murders, something was only possible from one specific location.

In all three cases, and in most of the other titles, there may be alternative explanations for the Joe’s observations, but it is not his role to deal with it. That’s up to the police.

These observations can be used to send the sleuth in the wrong direction, and Joe gets it wrong as often as he gets it right, but it’s in the nature of the genre that he will eventually correct his error.

So if our trio of tec’s don’t prove their case, what do they do?

They observe. Joe has a keen eye, Sheila has an intelligent mind, and Brenda is a people watcher. Between the three of them, they can demonstrate the likeliest scenario, outing the police on the right track.

And how do the police react this? They’re grateful… until Joe is gone, and then they’re grumbling that this little smartarse and his two companions made them appear incompetent.

But then, that’s in the nature of the genre, too.

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