Page 33 of The Bone Code

“I’ve seen the real thing.”

“Of course you have.” Rolling her eyes. “Tut’s was a funerary mask. Well-heeled Romans also made masks but for different reasons. To display their ancestors, maybe even to worship them, I’m not totally clear on that.”

Anne stopped to pop a shrimp into her mouth. Chewed.

“The Victorians were obsessed for a while. Far as I can tell, a lot of it had to do with something called phrenology. Ever hear of that?”

“Phrenologists claimed you could determine intellect and personality based on head shape and features. It was total bunk.”

“Right. It started with this German doctor, Franz Joseph Gall. Gall came up with the theory that lumps and bumps on the head could be used to determine a person’s character. Sounds wackadoo, but during phrenology’s peak popularity, roughly from the 1820s into the 1840s, a potential employer could actually demand a character reference from a phrenologist.”

“Seriously?”

Anne nodded. “As you say, pure rubbish, but it led to folks making copious masks. This Brit, James De Ville, collected more than two thousand of the things. Not all were created because of phrenology, of course. Some were made as templates for people wanting their portraits painted—”

“What does this have to do with Polly Beecroft?” I interrupted. A bit brusque, but we’d finished eating, and I was anxious to check my in-box for Ryan’s message.

“I’m getting to that.” Anne worked a key sequence, verified something on her screen. “Princeton University has a collection of death masks. So do Edinburgh University’s Anatomy Museum and Scotland Yard’s Crime Museum. The Victorians were obsessed with gruesome murders, so a shit ton of masks were made on executed criminals. Ever hear of William Burke?”

“Burke and his buddy, William Hare, robbed graves, then turned to murder to provide cadavers to medical schools.”

“And quid for their own pockets. Anyway, his mask is out there.” More keystrokes. “Some of these things have become crazy valuable. A bronze mask of Napoleon, made shortly after he died in 1821, sold in 2013 for about two hundred twenty thousand dollars.”

My eyes drifted to the wall clock over Anne’s shoulder. She noticed.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist. I’m getting to the good part.”

“I’m listening.”

“Dante, Mary, Queen of Scots, John Keats, Napoleon, Oliver Cromwell, William Blake, Beethoven, John Dillinger, James Dean—you’d be amazed how many people have been masked. And not just celebs.

“For years, University College London had a collection of thirty-seven heads. No one knew who they were. For a while, they were lent out to people studying art to use as models. Then, in the 1990s, some students found a publication titledNotes Biographical and Phrenological Illustrating a Collection of Castsby Robert R. Noel.”

“The UCL masks originally belonged to Noel?”

“Yep. Apparently, there used to be more—about forty-seven, including a bunch of skulls.”

“Over the years, specimens went missing.” I was getting the drift.

“Bingo. These days, a Brit named Nick Booth collects death masks. He’s offering a ‘skull amnesty.’?”

“A what?”

“Booth is saying that if you went to the Slade School of Art in the ’eighties and pinched one of Noel’s little beauties, you can return it to him, no questions asked.”

Anne closed her Mac and looked at me expectantly.

“You’re thinking the mask in Beecroft’s photo could be one of those missing from Noel’s collection?”

“Didn’t you say Polly’s sister was an artist?”

“Harriet. She was a painter.”

“Could Harriet have studied in London in the ’eighties?”

I did some quick math.

“It’s possible. But—”