ittle things mean a lot to the likes of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and Bob Olstein.

Who in blazes, you might well ask, is Bob Olstein?

Like his fictional forebears, Olstein is a sleuth of sorts. Instead of deducing a man's misfortunes from the shine on his trousers, he pores over financial statements to uncover clues to a company's future. Such skills are a big help when, like Olstein, you manage a lot of other people's money. Olstein and his retired partner, Thornton O'glove, earned their fame on Wall Street years ago as securities analysts, sometimes detecting signs of trouble in a business even before its management did.

At times, Olstein's skills seem downright uncanny.

Many investors would have looked at the original 1995 annual report of Medaphis Corp. and focused on the "Financial Highlights" on Page 1. The financial highlights showed no figure for net income (or profit), but did show $64.4 million in operating income "before restructuring, other charges and income taxes." Investors reading further would have found, on Page 17, that those charges and other non-operating expenses left the company with net income of only $2.7 million.

Still, that was history. Olstein burrowed deeper, in search of the eye-glazing stuff, like deferred income taxes, unbilled accounts receivable and "intangible" assets, that might suggest the future. Medaphis, based in Atlanta, was and remains a high-growth provider of billing services and business management systems to hospitals and medical practices. But Olstein spotted several signs of potential trouble amounting, he says, to a "sure bailout signal to investors."

That was early in 1996. Within eight months, the potential trouble became real, turning reported profits into losses. The 1995 report had to be redone. Amended, it showed a loss of $8.5 million instead of the originally reported profit of $2.7 million. In April 1995, Medaphis had made its fourth public offering of stock, selling more than 4 million shares at $31.25 each. The stock was selling as high as $52 after the original report appeared. The price fell off a cliff on Aug. 15, 1996, plunging from $35 to $14, and afterward hovered around $11 a share.

In February, the company announced a "turnaround plan" to focus its future efforts on its medical billing and management systems and to get rid of peripheral businesses.

"That was then and this is now," a Medaphis spokeswoman says when asked about Medaphis' past financial reporting. "If you read everything we released to the press in 1996, you would see that we're doing better."

"You had to read carefully to spot the red flags" in the original Medaphis report, Olstein says. Many investors don't have the patience for it and Wall Street's conventional wisdom says nobody bothers. If so, that can give an edge to the investor who does bother.