I believe that the sentence uses a simile, because it uses the word "like" to compare the villain's face to that of a statue.
In "Tell Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe, the beating heart the narrator heard symbolizes, at least in my opinion, the narrator's guilt.
He killed a man, and he kept hearing his beating heart, even though it was impossible. He kept hearing it because he felt guilty because he murdered a person, and he had to come clean to the police officers in some way. If he hadn't, he would go completely mad, and his crime would go unpunished, probably.
