A motif in many detective stories is the detective who presents the solution to a captive audience at the end of the story. The revelations are unexpected, the solution unknown to everyone in the audience.
Is it really believable? A murder occurs and only one person knows what's what?
As a literary motif, it works with private detectives. Monk is too finicky and Poirot is too pompous, in a sweet way, to confide.
However, a better solution is for the detective to tell people, just not the audience. Ngaio Marsh does this with Alleyn. In some ways, Marsh's treatment of her main character is a tad too worshipful--Alleyn does no wrong and everybody admires him, even cats--but she presents his relationship to his team completely right. Quite often, as early as a half or a third of the way through the mystery, Alleyn will sit down and explain things to his subordinates. But that dialog is kept from the reader.
In Final Curtain, Alleyn explains his inner thoughts to Fox, his right-hand man: "As they left [Scotland Yard], Alleyn took from his desk the second volume of a work on medical jurisprudence. It dealt principally with poisons. In the train, he commended certain passages to Fox's notice." In Scales of Justice, Alleyn explains his interpretation of important evidence to the local sergeant: "The explanation was detailed and exhaustive. Alleyn ended it with an account of the passage he had read in [the victim's] book." The local police are kept up-to-date on the latest developments.
Interestingly enough, Elementary uses a similar technique. Sherlock and Watson will arrive at a conclusion. In the next scene, the police are helping them and clearly have all the facts at hand.
Keeping the audience guessing is allowable. But if an arrest is going to follow the disclosures--other characters kind of need to know!
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