The Grand Hotel Alpenkrone, high in the mountains, on a Friday morning. For eleven flawless years Lionel Ashcombe has run it to perfection. Now an anonymous fax warns that a hotel critic is in the building, and if the fifth star is lost, the owner will sell to the vulgar hotel across the valley. Three suspects are reading newspapers in the lobby, all dressed exactly alike. A present-day farce where everything that can go wrong will.