The register of the hotel in St. Moritz is receiving its annual "dust off" in prepration for the influx of guests at the opening of the skating season.
It's a crisp autumn morning. Marta prepares breakfast and goes to work. Little Jenda has a sore throat, so she has to go to her grandfather's to look after the boy.
When a former artisan is tricked into putting his sister up as collateral for a loan by a gangster boss in a crooked gambling casino it sets in motion the story of Ooka Echizen, the famed magistrate of Edo during the reign of Shogun Tsuneyoshi.