CRYPTIC CROSSWORD

Across

1. Daredevil clerks seem half-confused (8)

4. A branch of the police to supply hallucinogenic drug (4)

8. It is owing to the sound of moisture deposited overnight (3)

9. A rush basket certainly isn’t strong (5)

10. Mean to get one in the period before lunch (3)

11. Wrong character has been printed, according to the letter (7)

12. To be so fetching is nothing less than tedious (5)

13. Silk one abandoned, muttered as by the timpani (11)

17. Grain husks for the rubbish (5)

18. How to kill the bird for the shrike (7)

20. Be sick of the post, without having begun it (3)

21. Was tempted to misrule before democracy could begin (5)

22. A blow on the knuckles is what one doesn’t care to give (3)

23. Much may come under the hammer at a sale (4)

24. Its press handout keeps doggedly on (8)

Down

1. It is a perplexing question, how to separate something (6)

2. Strongbox made up of ribs (5)

3. Where horse stands and car will stop (5)

5. One can fuddle it with rum, what holds one’s brain (7)

6. Beastly mother showing how old she is may do some harm (6)

7. Enlarged on broad tale the East developed (10)

9. Autumn includes one frost put out before anything else (5,2,3)

14. Shoulder-piece gives end of cape a let-up possibly (7)

15. Roughly write how first of swimmers found his stroke (6)

16. Fruit got hot, being fired in the old days (6)

18. Craft that will push its way through (5)

19. Takes on staff that is her undoing (5)