Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch leapt to the aid of a cyclist under attack on Friday (June 1), not far from the fictional detective's stomping ground in London.

According to The Sun newspaper, the incident took place on Marylebone High Street, just a short walk from Baker Street where Sherlock shares a flat with his bud Dr. Watson (Martin Freeman). This time, though, Benedict wasn't just solving crimes, but stopping one in the first place.

Taxi driver Manuel Dias claims he was driving Benedict and wife Sophie Hunter through central London on Friday night, when they saw four people harassing a cyclist.

Quick as a flash (or, say, a certain practitioner of the mystic arts), Benedict jumped out of the car, shouted "leave him alone!," and pulled the muggers off of the man, at which point Dias joined him and together they managed to get the bad guys to scarier (run off quickly). Whether he was wearing a cloak of levitation or not remains unconfirmed.

It sounds as if all that Marvel training paid off, though. Dias told the paper his famous passenger "seemed to know exactly what he was doing" and that he was "very brave."

Benedict was predictably modest about his heroic actions, saying, "I did it out of… well, I had to, you know."

What a (super) hero.

Are you surprised at Benedict's heroics?