Call for Michael Shayne [= Case of the Missing Twelve Days]

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It was a strange awakening for Arthur Devlin. He was accustomed to waking up all over at once, and bounding out of bed. This morning only a small part of his mind was active and he felt paralyzed except for the sharp, tearing pulsations of agony in his head and a gagging nausea in his throat. The bed began swaying when he moved. He reached out and grasped the side iron rails and clung to them until the motion gradually subsided, like the “cat dying” in a child’s swing.

God! What a sea! He tried to speak, but his tongue filled his mouth, rough and parched. He tried to open his eyes. The lids stuck fast. He made another cautious move to raise himself to a sitting position, but the exertion brought the reeling and the nausea and the unendurable throbbing to his head again. He fell back on the pillow and lay very still, swallowing hard to keep the knot in his throat down.

Gradually, through the torturous pain in his head, he tried desperately to rouse his numbed brain cells. It was odd that he should be seasick. He had always been a good sailor. Then a blurred and foggy thought came through. The storm — the tossing of the boat — he recalled vaguely the weather reports before he sailed, promising fair weather.

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