[NS] Michelle Berger

"Michel Berger is the head of the Resistance here in Casablanca," Captain Renault announced flatly.

"If he is, why don't you arrest him?" Rick asked.

"Knowing something and being able to prove it in a court of law are two different things," Captain Renault answered. "But don't worry. One day I shall."

"Anyway," Captain Renault returned to the subject at hand, "His wife was in occupied France... Dijon, to be exact... and she was arrested by the Gestapo. She died while in their custody. Their only child was a girl ... although now a young woman. Her name is Michelle... She was away at a Swiss finishing school when it happened.... She believes that her father was the cause of her mother's ****. That he could have saved her but it would have been at the cost of betraying the Resistance . . . More recently, the Resistance was pursuing a big operation here in Casablanca."

"The Resistance was going to bring in a large shipment of weapons and the man killed was to have been in charge?" Rick asked. Signor Ferrari had already told him that much.

"Exactly," Renault nodded, "Which is why we found the passport. Besides being paid a fee, the killers were told that they could keep whatever they found on the victim... Except the passport. Michelle wanted to make sure that her father knew the man was dead... It was her way of getting back at Michel Berger."

"But where would an eighteen year old finishing school graduate get the dough to hire two assassins?" Rick asked.

"Ah!" Captain Renault smiled the type of smile he smiles when his number comes up on The Cafe' Americain's roulette wheel. "That's the final irony. It was her inheritance from her mother... The female assassin has a brother who is in the resistance. She gave her fee to him, who in turn..."

"Donated it to the Resistance?" Rick guessed the obvious guess.

"She did succeed in hurting her father's work," Renault nodded. "But in so doing, she gave away the last of her mother's legacy to her father's beloved Resistance."

"That is assuming that he is in the Resistance," Rick 'corrected'.

"He is in the Resistance," Captain Renault insisted. "I am as certain of that as I am certain of the fact that fifty million Frenchmen can't be wrong!"