No 12973, Saturday 27 Jun 2020, KrisKross

ACROSS
1   Caretaker, for the most part, has appropriate clothes (8) WARDROBE {WARD{ROB}Er}
5   Indian state’s move for improvement (6) UPTURN {UP}{TURN}
9   Crooked guide? (8) SHEPHERD (CD)
10 Two vessels retreating to European city (6) KRAKOW {WOK}{ARK}<=
12 What could be bread for a man with many wives (9) BLUEBEARD {BREAD*} Reverse Anagram
13 Borders of Hungary easily accessible (5) HANDY {H AND Y}
14 Bad fortune from mischievous play, they say (4) ?I?S (Addendum - JINX (~jinks) - See comments)
16 Demonstrating loyalty for soldiers (7) SINCERE {SINCE}{RE}
19 Disgusting small criminal trapped in pound (7) SQUALID {S}{QU{AL}ID}
21 One unable to fly overhead, essentially (4) RHEA (T)
24 Balanced, ultimately tight game (5) EVENT {EVEN}{tighT}
25 Justification to share drink (9) RATIONALE {RATION}{ALE}
27 Man is transformed after welcoming one who is his ancestor (6) SIMIAN {MAN+IS*} around {I}
28 Worthy doctor out to block Corona perhaps (8) VIRTUOUS {VIR{OUT*}US}
29 One smuggling // fish (6) RUNNER (DD)
30 Teacher and kid return playing station (8) GARRISON {{SIR}{RAG}<=}{ON}

DOWN
1   Plant used to be somewhat short (6) WASABI {WAS}{A BIt}
2   Foul regularly, breaking rule, confused and repentant (6) RUEFUL {RULE*} around {FoUl}
3   Cure using a herb (5) REHAB {A+HERB*}
4   Boyfriends pinching half your furniture (7) BUREAUS {B{yoUR}EAUS} (Correction - BUREAUX {B{yoUR}EAUX} - See comments)
6   Seat belt can break in the middle possibly (9) PERCHANCE {PERCH}{CAN*}{brEak}
7   More cruel one involved in drunken dancing (8) UNKINDER {I} in {DRUNKEN*}
8   Just married — want to go around with extremely lovely wife (8) NEWLYWED {NE{W}{LovelY}{W}ED}
11 Dads working for tots (4) ADDS {DADS*}
15 Chased by a flirt, KrisKross will be uncomfortable (3,2,4) ILL AT EASE {I' LL}{A}{T EASE}
17 He tests stupid people, therefore, with a bit of revision (8) ASSESSOR {ASSES}{SO}{Revision}
18 Star filled in by American agent about a fantastic role (8) SUPERMAN {SU{{AM}{REP}<=}N}
20 Earth is tired out, with no energy (4) DIRT {TIReD*}
21 Man is terribly upset sampling wine (7) RETSINA T<=
22 Knives and arrows starting to zip around — woman killed (6) RAZORS {ARROwS+Zip*}
23 Argue about a boy (6) REASON {RE}{A}{SON}
26 Animal, say, gets beheaded for nothing (5) OTTER {(-u+O)TTER}

Reference List

Indian state=UP, Soldiers=Re, Small=S, Criminal=Al, Pound=Quid, One=A, Playing=On
One=I, With=W, Wife=W, American=Am, Agent=Rep, Energy=E, Woman=W, About=Re, Nothing=O

Colour/Font Scheme

Definition, Solution, Component letters, Embedded links, Theme word,  Anagram Indicator, C/C indicator, Reversal Indicator, Hidden word Indicator, Letter Pick indicator, Deletion Indicator, Homophone Indicator, Movement Indicator, Positional Indicator, Substitution, Indicator, Opposite indicator, Link/Connector, Extraneous

Dr RKE's TalePiece

Argus Papadakis married RHEA Makri in a colourful EVENT at the Greek Orthodox Church in Athens on 3rd May (mark this date now, more about it later). The NEWLYWEDs had a blissful first year of marriage. Then, one day, PERCHANCE, while dusting the WARDROBE in their house, Rhea stumbled upon a photo album of Argus. There were pictures which showed him in wedding attire with 3 different women. When she questioned him, his proffered REASON, that they were pictures shot in the plays that he had staged as an amateur stage actor, were unconvincing, to say the least. Although ILL AT EASE with the discovery, Rhea decided to make a SINCERE effort to trace the 3 women in the pictures.  

Looking at the pictures with a magnifying glass she found the date stamp on the photos and they all had been shot on 3rd May but each was 2 years apart from the other. When Argus was away at KRAKOW, Poland for a business trip, she took the pictures to the Greek BUREAU of marriage registration. Her friendship, with a clerk in that office (a schoolmate) came in HANDY to dig out the DIRT. The clerk was surprised that the date was 3rd May, as it is considered a JINX in Greece to get married on that date.  Only a handful would get married that day. So it was easy work for the clerk to get all the weddings registered on that day in each of those years but there was no name of Argus Papadakis. The clerk made enquiries over phone to the brides in the list and in the third try, she found that the woman, a Lydia, had died 5 years back at the age of 28.  Few more calls and she confirmed one more similar “accidental death”. She passed on the information to a RUEFUL Rhea.

When Argus returned from his trip, she treated him lavishly at a dinner with RETSINA, the Greek wine, famed for loosening one’s tongue. Argus called out to her “Lydia, my dear”. The alarm bells went off in the head of the VIRTUOUS Rhea’s head. “It ADDS up” she thought. She went to the police with her suspicions and they were initially unconvinced of her RATIONALE. Nevertheless, they launched an investigation and traced all the 3 women in the photos who had died under uncannily similar circumstances. The insurance ASSESSORs had made huge payments to the deceased’s husband in every case. Though the name of the husband was different, the graphology experts confirmed that the signatures in the insurance papers were all the same and matched with that of Argus. The files of these 3 cases were reopened and Argus was soon arrested.

The SQUALID details were out in the papers and on TV. Argus was called the BLUEBEARD by the press. Nothing could be UNKINDER for Rhea and her ilk than some sections of the media, portraying Argus’s conquests as if he were a SUPERMAN.