Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials Ending Explained: Who is the Killer?

Netflix’s ‘Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials’ is a three-part murder mystery that follows Lady Eileen Brent, aka Bundle, who takes it upon herself to solve the murder of a friend who is killed in her own house. The story leads her on a path that winds through the dangerous alleys of London, puts her face-to-face with a secret society of masked men, and puts more lives in danger as more blood is shed in the process of getting to the bottom of the truth. The final episode unravels the entire mystery, with a shocking revelation for Bundle and the audience. SPOILERS AHEAD.

Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials Plot Synopsis

‘Seven Dials’ begins in Ronda, Spain, where a man enters a bullring to find a card placed in the center of the field. He is clearly confused about the whole thing, but doesn’t have enough time to think about it because a bull is set loose. The beast attacks the man, who bleeds to death on the ground. The story jumps ahead a few years. It is 1925, and a party is raging inside Chimneys, the stately home of the Caterham family. Lady Caterham and her daughter, Bundle, have loaned the house to Sir Oswald and Lady Coote to host their party, through which they aim to secure a deal with the British government’s Foreign Office. Bundle’s friend, Gerry Wade, also works for the Foreign Office, and there seems to be a clear connection between them.

That night, they dance together, and Wade asks her for dinner next week and reveals his intention to ask her a question then. Bundle realizes he is going to propose and is ecstatic about the possibility. Meanwhile, Wade’s co-workers, Bill and Ronny, place eight clocks inside Wade’s room, all set to go off at different times. This is a prank they are playing on him because of his habit of waking up late in the day. The next morning, everyone wakes up hungover, but even as all the alarms go off in Wade’s room, he doesn’t wake up. He is found dead with an empty bottle of sleeping draught on his bedside table. Bundle notices that seven of the eight clocks that Bill and Ronny had hidden in the room are put up on the mantlepiece.

Wade’s death is ruled a suicide, but Bundle knows there is more to the story. She finds a letter that he had written the previous night to his sister, Loraine, but was never able to send. The letter mentions “seven dials,” but it’s not clear what it’s actually referring to. Bundle asks Ronny’s help in looking into the Seven Dials, while also being warned by her mother not to get involved in something that can put her in serious danger. Bundle also notes a strange man, later revealed to be a Superintendent from Scotland Yard, following her around. The next day, while driving into town, she finds an injured man on the road. It turns out to be Ronny, who has been shot. Before dying, he mutters the words “seven dials” and “tell… Jimmy Thesiger.

Bundle’s Investigation Leads Her to Another Party

Despite the advice and warnings from several people close to her, Bundle does not stop her investigation into the murders of Wade and Ronny. She discovers that Seven Dials is a club in a seedier part of London and, after sneaking into one of its rooms, witnesses the meeting of six masked people. They talk about having buried the investigation into Ronny’s murder, tagging it as an accident, and getting an invitation to the party of George Lomax, where a scientist, Dr. Matip, will show up with his invention. It is their mission to get that invention for themselves. So, Bundle makes it a point to get invited to that party, dragging Jimmy and Bill with her. The party also has the Cootes, with Superintendent Battle brought in for security, after Lomax receives a mysterious threatening note. Because Matip is the target, Bundle believes they should keep an eye on his door, preventing anyone from going in or out.

Jimmy decides to take first watch, while Bundle slips out of her room through her window, only to encounter Battle patrolling the grounds. Later, when Bundle goes back inside, she notices that Jimmy is not at his post, and Bill is not in bed either. She hears the sounds of a fight and a gun firing off inside the study, where Jimmy is found injured, shot in his right arm. He says that a masked man attacked him and ran out of the window. At the same time, Battle’s men find Loraine on the grounds. She says that she snuck in because she was worried about Bundle and Jimmy’s safety, considering how her own brother had been recently killed.  Meanwhile, Coote enters the hall, revealing that he went out on a night walk and found a gun lying on the ground. The next morning, Battle inspects the lawn, and Bundle joins him.

From the dent on the floor, they conclude that the gun was thrown from inside the house. Moreover, there is only one set of footprints when there should be two: Coote’s and the assailant’s. Battle also finds a burnt glove with teeth marks. When he asks if anyone would like to wear it, Jimmy offers his right hand, and it turns out to be a bigger size. At the same time, Loraine leaves the hall to go back to her room when Lady Coote notes that one of her earrings is missing, but doesn’t come back. When Battle and Bundle go to her room, they find the officer who accompanied her beaten up. Moreover, Dr. Antip is revealed to have been rendered unconscious with the same sleeping draught that was used on Wade, and his watch and top-secret formula are missing as well.

Who Killed Gerry and Ronny?

With Loraine on the run, it becomes clear that she is the one who laced Dr. Antip’s drink to render him unconscious and ran away with his formula. However, because Jimmy was attacked by a man, the mystery isn’t entirely solved yet. For that, they need to catch Loraine. Bundle believes she must be trying to get out of town quickly, so they head to the train station. Having spotted her, she, Bill, and Jimmy board the same train. Bill comes up with the idea of splitting up, which strikes Jimmy as odd, so he and Bundle follow him. Eventually, they find Bill pointing a gun at Loraine, revealing that he has taken the watch and the formula from her. Bundle notes that Loraine didn’t frantically get on a random train.

She asks for her ticket, and when Loraine shows it, it becomes clear that this was a part of the plan. Bundle notes that Loraine’s ticket will only take her as far as the next station, which means she was supposed to meet someone else to whom she would have handed over the formula. When she keeps prodding her, Loraine drops the act and asks Jimmy for help. It turns out that he had been her co-conspirator all along. The duo had planned to steal and sell the formula and make an exorbitant amount of money that would have saved them from falling into poverty. Jimmy reveals that his debt had become too much for him to pay, and this was his way to get out of his financial woes.

He confesses that he killed Ronny after the latter discovered too much and came too close to the truth. The previous night, he made a show of getting into a fight. He shot himself in the right arm, because he is a lefty, and threw the gun from the window, which is how it left a significant dent in the ground. He used a glove to ensure there were no fingerprints left on the weapon. He took off with his teeth and threw it into the fireplace. All this chaos gave Loraine the time to break into Dr. Antip’s room and steal the formula. However, he did not kill Wade. That was Loraine’s doing. Apparently, the night of the party, Loraine realised that Wade was onto her and Jimmy. There was no proof of it, but her paranoia got the better of her.

So, throughout that night, she laced Wade’s drinks with the sleeping draught, so that by the time he went to sleep, he had so much of it in his system that he would never wake up again. It was she who put the empty bottle of the draught by his bedside to make it look like he had killed himself. When he discovered what she had done, he decided to throw the cops off their scent by getting the clocks and putting seven of them on the mantlepiece while throwing one away. He got the idea after having heard the term “seven dials” by Wade, and thought that this detail would send the investigation in a different direction. However, he also mentions that he wasn’t the mastermind of this plan.

Who is the Real Mastermind? What Happens to Dr. Antip’s Invention?

While Loraine and Jimmy are apprehended, it still leaves the question of the person to whom Loraine was supposed to hand over the formula. Bundle assumed that the person would show up at the next stop, but Jimmy reveals that the person is already on the train. The idea was to deliver the formula and then get off at the next station. So, Bundle sets out to find the person after finding out the coach where Loraine was supposed to meet them. She is shocked to find her own mother waiting at the rendezvous point. It turns out that Lady Caterham had been behind the whole conspiracy from the beginning. With all the cards laid out on the table, Bundle’s mother sees no point in hiding anymore, so she reveals the truth.

During the war, Lady Caterham lost her son, and later, her husband (who is revealed to be the man who died in the opening scene of the show) was killed on a mission for the country. She felt that she had given everything to the country, but had received nothing but heartbreak and pain in return. With her husband gone, ownership of Chimneys fell to her, but they didn’t have the money to maintain the place. At one of the parties, Lady Caterham learned about Dr. Matip and his invention and realised she had the connections to sell it to the highest bidder. While she knew how important it was for the country’s safety to ensure that the invention didn’t fall into the wrong hands, she didn’t care about it at all. Her son and husband had given the family’s fair share in the name of patriotism.

Right now, she only cared about providing for herself and her daughter, whom she had grossly underestimated. Lady Caterham knew that Jimmy was in the same boat as her, so she roped him into the plan, with Loraine joining them as well. When Bundle calls her out on the murders, she says it was never her intention. She had not planned for Wade to die; it was Loraine and her paranoia that led her to take the impulsive decision. In the same vein, Ronny’s blood was on Jimmy’s hands. Having confessed it all, Lady Caterham believes her daughter will not hand her over to the cops, but she is proven wrong again. She holds her mother at gunpoint until Battle arrives and arrests the woman. With the watch and the formula retrieved safely, Dr. Antip signs the deal with the British government, bringing the case to an end.

Who is Number Seven? Does Bundle Join the Seven Dials Society?

Lady Caterham, Jimmy, and Loraine are arrested for the conspiracy to steal Dr. Antip’s formula and the two murders committed in the process, but that still leaves the mystery of the “seven dials.” The discovery of her mother’s crimes throws Bundle into a state of despair, but she is forced to come out of it when their former footman, Alfred, shows up at Chimneys. He says that Seven Dials has summoned her, and when she refuses to come with him, he holds her at gunpoint. She is taken back to the club and into the room where she had hidden and witnessed a secret meeting only a few days ago. This time, however, she is given the empty seat at the table, with six masked people joining her. Number Seven removes his mask and turns out to be Superintendent Battle.

It turns out that she is sitting with the members of the Seven Dials Society, a secret organisation working to keep the world safe. Bundle mistakenly believed they were the enemy and the orchestrator of the whole thing, but Battle reveals that they wanted to keep Dr. Antip’s formula safe by ensuring that he signed the deal with the British government. They were never involved in the murders. However, they were keeping an eye on Bundle. He reveals that Bundle’s father was one of them, and he was killed on the mission where he was sent to meet Dr. Antip and get his formula. However, their enemies got wind of their plans, so they had her father killed (which is what the bullring scene was all about). They tried to get Dr. Antip’s research, killing his sister in the process, but failed.

Battle reveals that the idea was to assess Bundle, and he has concluded that not only is she up to the task, but she is also much better at it than her father. Also, being a Lady and having a vibrant social circle that gives her access to all sorts of people, she is incredibly well-placed to help them achieve their goals. He offers her the opportunity to join them, while underlining the fact that the job will take her to different places around the world and put her in life-threatening situations. This makes Bundle even more intrigued about it, and she decides to join them. Battle says that they urgently need her on a mission, and she asks him to tell her all about it. To confirm that she is now one of them, she wears the mask and joins the Seven Dials Society.

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