When Nicola Bulley disappeared from the bank of the River Wyre on 27 January 2023, it set in motion a deluge of TikTok amateur detectives to the scene of the disappearance, all intent on exploiting the mystery for social media clicks.  The subsequent rash of conspiracy theories and trampled countryside only succeeded in hampering the ongoing police investigation and adding to the distress of Nicola’s friends and family.

But this unwelcome descent of amateur detectives upon a crime scene is nothing new; not, even, a phenomenon exclusive to the age of the internet.

When Ronald A. Knox wrote The Footsteps at the Lock in 1928, he had already identified how press publicity of a crime will often result in an influx of well-intentioned but unwelcome amateur sleuths, convinced that they can do a better job at solving the mystery than the police.

In The Footsteps at the Lock, it is the unloved undergraduate Derek Burtell who goes missing during a canoe-trip along the upper reaches of the Thames, and it is the insurance investigator Miles Bredon, charged with the task of confirming Derek’s death, or otherwise, who predicts that his job will soon be hindered by an invasion of truth-seekers: “The forebodings Bredon had expressed were amply justified.  To the intense irritation of the local fisherman, the banks of the river were lined all Saturday afternoon by amateur detectives who had bicycled over to try their hand at the game; the locks were almost congested with inquisitive punts and pleasure-boats; a couple of charabancs ran from Oxford, and their enterprise did not prove a disappointment.”

And the reason for this echo of the TikTok sleuths way back in 1928?  The growing popularity of the camera.  Amateur photographers could take pictures of crime scenes; record supposed clues; act like wannabe Weegees.

In fact, a camera, and a roll of six prints, play an important role in the plot of The Footsteps at the Lock.  Ronald Knox describes with the evident enjoyment of novelty, the ‘trick’ of taking double exposures, as well as the ease of a fumbled click on the shutter taking an unintentional snapshot.

The home camera in 1928; TikTok in 2023: technologies change, but mysteries endure.

© Fergus Longfellow

Fergus Longfellow has an eye for spotting the culprit.

Miles Bredon mysteries by Ronald A Knox

The Three Taps (Methuen, 1927)
The Footsteps at the Lock (Methuen, 1928)
The Body in the Silo (Hodder, 1933)
Still Dead (Hodder, 1934)
Double Cross Purposes (Hodder, 1937)