Toughie No. 21 — 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. Loud organ pitched (5)
4. Loud anger, and evidence that won't burn (9)
9. Held back, that is a dash in Morse (3)
11. Guts and heart make the hub of operations (5,6)
12. Small, confined and exhausted (5)
14. Fibber turned to complain (4)
15. Flannel, with residue on material (9)
16. Hundred in the handout is sweet (5)
17. Put away ahead of time to explain (9)
19. Daughter before a split gets the general idea (5)
21. Country store hides a secret date (5)
23. Tout gold to the one who draws up your will (9)
27. Taped, unfortunately, but expert (5)
28. Extras — and idiots — badly cast (9)
31. Dull person drilled (4)
32. Ready for trouble later, sadly (5)
34. The level a canny investor hopes to get in at (6,5)
35. Used to be turned into a proverb (3)
36. Unusually beheaded, as a rule (9)
37. Time for questions about our duties (5)

Down

1. Leaders of fashion always die speedily! (4)
2. Haul, then move an unknown — bad for you (9)
3. Good to relent, oddly, is kinder (7)
4. Get rid of the plant and there is trouble (9)
5. Streams without current give off smells (5)
6. Recipe cooked for daughter with a hole in it (7)
7. Some author thought up a prefix for straight (5)
8. Cheeky leap makes a new beginning (5,5)
10. A professional name for part of the stage (5)
13. Pleasant French resort (4)
16. A stud, right, cracked up and beside oneself (10)
18. Time and everything in the account? What a whopper! (4,5)
20. Sin Street redeveloped: these are our concerns (9)
22. Wrecked in attic, it was enormous (7)
24. Bear act arranged for the floor show (7)
25. Lazy, we hear, but a star (4)
26. Carmen, say, is work of an age (5)
29. Duck in the fall and sag (5)
30. Part of fallen beast! (5)
33. Stow away in pairs (4)

More: Toughie cryptic crosswords.

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