CRYPTIC CROSSWORD

ACROSS 1. Rash of freckles didn’t start with sulphur (8)

4. A girl, note (4)

8. Racket taken in hand instead (3)

9. It could be miles of slippery mud (5)

10. Bread, or whisky, for a gypsy gentleman (3)

11. Mercurous chloride makes it all come adrift (7)

12. Apply pressure to unknown quantity in tree perhaps (5)

13. It is almost a pet doctrine, such preferential treatment (11)

17. In that place it is comfortingly repeated (5)

18. Reels, with Robert, to the wine racks (7)

20. Abitof butter to encourage one? (3)

21. Atenth of a nautical mile of wire (5)

22. Put the fish back in the quarter to which the wind blows (3)

23. Ditto, repeatedly, it is a bird no longer with us (4)

24. Fowl taken to church by chap who’s at one’s right hand (8) DOWN 1. Take weight off by use of crude energy (6)

2. Waterway that makes an entry in State (5)

3. A slight accident to the flame-carrier (5)

5. He’s torn badly by such as sting (7)

6. Score five boundaries (6)

7. Belted, with lace that could be delightful (10)

9. Moon about in silence one had left in one’s sleepiness (10)

14. Was warned it could be altered (7)

15. Puts up with one, dead silly (6)

16. It is like a gull that is behind a sailor (6)

18. Holy writ on this sort of paper (5)

19. Mail’s been distributed to the Muslim world (5)