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The writer has the responsibility to have a rational detective ask relevant questions that a rational reader might make about the premise of a story.
For instance, if the detective is told in testimony that "oh, a robot murdered him," this would be something worthy of speculation in a story set in plain vanilla 1870s London. On the other hand, it would not be a big deal in Asimov's Elijah Bailey novels, because robots exist there and we've accepted the premise of them and their laws going in.
In the latter case, we don't want Elijah Bailey dwelling on what a robot is, because he already knows. In the former case, however, we want a rational question to be raised, like "What's a robot doing in this story?" or "How did this person even come up with the concept of a robot?" Done well, this can certainly still make for a good story. Done poorly, however, and it stands out as something bizarre and out of place the author didn't properly establish, either by the setting making it something we suspend our disbelief for or something the detective character is himself curious about.
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