Crossword Genius

Croft girl slicing fish -- think something's odd? (5,1,3)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

smell a rat

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'slicing fish think something's odd?' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I can't tell whether this works.

'croft girl' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'girl' could be 'mella' and 'mella' is found in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for smell a rat that I've seen before include "Detect something suspicious" , "Sense something suspicious" , "Sense something is amiss" , "Find something fishy" , "Have suspicion something is afoot" .)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.
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