Toughie No. 6 — cryptic crossword

A toughie puzzle: 40 clues on a 15×15 grid. Solve it online — check your answers as you go, ask for a hint, and read how each clue works once it is solved.

Across

1. Swallow the instruments and stop work (4,5)
6. Beauty is a ring, we hear (5)
9. Kitty and fortune make whatever's on offer (7)
10. Note on the road: divert (7)
11. Top drops into eyes, the natural shutters (7)
15. Kernel of the matter for a madman (7)
16. Gets up when crises lose their head (5)
17. Obscure coteries have reformed (8)
18. Some would grab both, but not the abbey's chief (5)
22. Valley that holds a single note (4)
23. Make fast, or use a whip (4)
24. Serpent that could never manage to multiply (5)
26. On a bone diet, unusually dutiful (8)
28. Mad and not in control, at first! (5)
30. Soldiers, endlessly, on a strict routine (7)
32. Bridal, as one has to unplait awkwardly (7)
33. Boy, posh, with the gunners is one old Japanese warrior (7)
34. Castile, remodelled, with plenty of give (7)
35. Shortly coming back east for the snare (5)
36. Present nag one shouldn't inspect too closely (4,5)

Down

1. Smart when rapped out of order (6)
2. Humour on the headland, editor observed (9)
3. Trout is swimming round the sightseer (7)
4. Duck a king by the tree (3)
5. The big turn-out is bound to be spotless (6,5)
6. Cap and thanks make an Italian pistol, maybe (7)
7. Girl showing some unusual aura (5)
8. Next after the tenth, the elven danced (8)
12. Give way to produce (5)
13. Freetown money held by a little one (5)
14. Encircling ruins, ground under redevelopment (11)
19. Whinge when learner is taken in by the police patrol (5)
20. Rail at Ben, trains disrupted (9)
21. Iotas swirling round the old Roman port (5)
22. Organ, sir, played for the soldiers on the base (8)
25. Guilt about the dots and dashes (7)
27. Charge that I'm about to inform (7)
29. Stock phrase buried in cyclic headlines (6)
31. Creole stew: stick with bishop and love (5)
34. Elusive little fellow, primarily! (3)

More: Toughie cryptic crosswords.

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