/authors/alikat/Recent content in Alikat on Gromet's Plaza ArchiveHugoen-usMon, 02 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000/stories/2007/07/02/situation-vacant/Mon, 02 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000/stories/2007/07/02/situation-vacant/<p>Madam Becaud hurried purposefully along the narrow corridor which linked the musty cellar rooms of the Chateau de la Croix. It was 7.50 pm. She must not, on any account, be late. The passageway was cold and bare. Swiftly she moved through the few dim pools of light thrown down by a naked row of bulbs. Tonight, as always, as she bustled along listening to the hard and spikey echoes of her heels, she was struck by the dark, forbidding atmosphere of this hidden underworld. Above her head, in violent contrast, every room of the old house was the very essence of opulence and glamour, each one a distillation of countless generations of inbred elegance and the product, of course, of  unimaginable wealth.</p>