The rumor sent a shudder through the bell captain on Monday as he hustled across the lobby of the Plaza Hotel, the Manhattan landmark at Fifth Avenue and Central Park South.

A couple photographing their young children mimicking a scene from “Home Alone 2” in a marble hallway nearby said they, too, had heard the reports: Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei had put down $2 billion for the Plaza, an elegant fixture in the city’s cultural and commercial life for more than a century, and two other high-end hotels.

After four days of reports about the sale ricocheting from London to New York to Hollywood to Mumbai to the Middle East, a spokesman for the sultan issued a statement vehemently denying that he was “involved in any way with the purchase” of the hotels.

The denial notwithstanding, this much is clear: The Plaza is in play, again, as part of a drama with an international cast of characters, two of whom are facing significant legal problems.