Instructions: Guess the words defined by the cryptic clues (answers vary in length from four to eleven letters, and six are capitalized) then enter them in the grid one after another in the same order as their clues, starting in the upper left corner. Across words that don't end at the right continue on the next row, and down words that don't end at the bottom continue in the next column. Eleven across words and ten down words won't fit in the grid unless one of their letters is omitted. Those twenty-one letters, taken in order as they occur in across and down words, spell a seven-word message related to the mystery entry. Thanks to Kevin Wald for test-solving and editing this puzzle. (If you are having trouble printing these puzzles, you can download an Adobe Acrobat version of the puzzle and grid). [Want to see some hints?]

1. Suit involving a decree
2. Queer old ode is a meaningless scribble
3. Dedicated plot in Sudan
4. Character exchanging last of lucre for a fiddle
5. Her caper upset minister
6. One lingers hapless and nameless in a Mediterranean seaport
7. Dash of white arsenic
8. Newlywed has no desire at first for cheese
9. Brother taking medicines essentially for feminine depression
10. An ape's wild song
11. Keen, excellent beer without a head
12. No car in America is equipped with a wind instrument
13. Angry about new night sound
14. Claim line has been breached
15. Briskly proceed with perverse, wrongful act
16. Moves to carry American in flight
17. Needle and pen, the essentials of bloodletting
18. Mad Creon has a tissue covering the eye
19. Chuck once cloned to elicit sympathy
20. Mafia leader grabs cloth lizard
21. Lean Laura dancing with nose guard
22. Labor leader's intrusion into assembly leads to split

1. A rag for untangling a hodgepodge
2. Science appears endlessly and misleadingly theatrical
3. Chemical extraction of coffee's terpenes
4. Seize a conveyance
5. No charge for talk
6. Ham cooked rare
7. Clever hint about tempo
8. Sing in English for one of the Kennedys
9. Summer snake
10. Coupled, privately at first, preceding broadcast
11. Noise from right propeller
12. Rabbi, in strip, gets support for dancers
13. Curved line inside body is indicative of tumor
14. Check sound of shower
15. Pour boiling liquid on yellowtail, for instance, including a pinch of lavender
16. I must go inside factory for plastic
17. Chinese dynasty originally initiated dance
18. Well-known Lady Green's Kinky. . .
19. Gentle fellow residing in Andover
20. Grains of turmeric extract
21. Legislator's alone at noon
22. Neat prose revivified language
23. Ireland's distinctive flair