Either I am getting better at Inquisitors or this one was not as challenging as it first appeared.  When I bought the paper last week, I took one look at the puzzle and thought “Oh! This looks tough”.  However, when I actually sat down and had a go at it a week later, it was actually quite easy.

The down clues were straightforward, and, apart from the unclued 25dn, which is the puzzle’s theme, 80-90% of them went in at first reading.  Once they were in place, some of the across answers became obvious, and it became clear that not all of the lights needed to be tweaked before being placed in the grid.

As it turned out, each group of three had one solution which needed something removed, and inserted into another solution before being eneterd in the grid, and the third solution in each trio was entered as clued.

Once some of the across clues were in place I was left with _RAE_E at 25dn, not having solved 23ac.  I could only think of two possible words, one of which (GRAEME) didn’t promise much.  The other, GRAEAE, I have to admit I had to check.

Turns out the Graeae were Greek goddesses which took the form of old grey-haired women.  Their names were Deino (”Dread”), Enyo (”Horror”) and Pemphredo (”Alarm”).  They are most widely known as part of the story of Perseus, who forced them to tell him the whereabouts of the Gorgons.

The important fact about them as far as the theme is concerned, is that they had but one eye and one tooth between them, and they had to share them.

I had already worked that it was necessary to remove words such as EYE, EE, I and COG from some words and place them into anothers to get clue entries, so this made sense, as the first three relate to “eye”, “I” being the homophone mentioned in the preamble.  COG relates to “tooth”, and, according to the preamble, one word had to be repeated.  I was therefore looking for one word meaning or related to “tooth”.

As luck would have it, the first word I thought of, FANG, was the one I was looking for.

So the across grid entries (A - word added, P - plain clue, R - word removed), were:
ACROSS

1 (A) RAZO(r)-FANG-O - RAZOO being an almost worthless gambling chip

12 (P) ABOLISHER - AB-(his lore)*

13 (R) OLD(fang)LED - (fold)*-ANGLED

14 (R) UNMON(eye)D - ONE in (my nude)*

15 (A) SO-EYE-OM - initial letters of “Some Order Obliging McPherson”.  SOOM is a Scots word for “swim”

16 (P) STOOPE(d)

17 (A) TA-COG-ME - where TAME = “MATE” mostly reversed

20 (R) S(cog)GIN - not sure of the wordplay here, but Scoggin was a jester, so “Patch” is the definition

21 (P) S.P.-0-USE - S.P. = sine prole (without issue)

23 (P) H(IE)ING - HING is another word for “asafoetida”, an ill-smelling medicinal gum

26 (R) S(ee) OUT

28 (A) (w)A-EE-STER

30 (P) O-TELL-O - a Rossini opera

32 (A) L-COG-(i)ANA

34 (R) RE(cog)NISE - CO in (<=E SINGER)

35 (P) AVULSE - (values)*

36 (A) RE-ENAC-I-TS - (g)REEN-(cast)*

37  (R) NECESSA(i)RE - (Irene’s care)* - a toilet-bag, dressing-case or work-box

Down clues worth a mention were:

3 Z-Y-DECO(r) - blues-influenced Cajun music

10 TEN-P-IN

11 (g)ARDEN

19 THE(CAT)E

27 EL(S)AN - a sort of Portaloo

29 ENSOR - hidden in “greENS, ORanges” - James Ensor (1860-1949), whose most famous work was “entry of Christ into Brussels”

18D was the key to cracking this one although I somehow got two of the clues that refer to it before working out what was going on. I haven’t played Cluedo since I was a kid and the only characters I remembered were the ones in 1D and 8D. The rest weren’t too tricky to get but some of the other clues in the puzzle were very tough (22A and 2D in particular) and there were a couple of (to me anyway) obscure words (RIANT and TAIPING). Good puzzle though, and a very satisfying solve.

An unusual mixture of some very easy clues and extremely tricky ones to finish. Harder than usual - solving time: 28 mins.

A short blog but happy to explain any other clues if asked.

< = reversed

ACROSS

1 GAME SOME Game = bridge tot = sum = “some” said

10 LESS ON = More off!

13 G (ARM) ENTS

DOWN

1 GO AT

12 RAST AFAR IAN Tsar<

14 MOO (T HOU) SE

20 SEE MING

Found this hard for Audreus – who I’ve blogged a couple of times in the past. Had to resort to the dictionary to solve the anagram at 7D which looked awfully unlikely in any permutation (PHTHALEIN). Not to mention an obscure poet at 18D… (that said, I’m sure some of you can recite verses and verses of FLECKER at will). I felt that some of the clues had weakish surfaces (no sycophancy here!)… see below.

Across

Down