Dear Mary: Is there a polite way to ask for the return of a handbag full of cash?

Q. A friend regularly hires a stall at a general neighbourhood market in order to sell surplus second-hand clothes and women’s accessories. She recently sold one of her handbags to a regular customer whom she knows quite well. Subsequently she realised that she had left her day’s takings in the handbag (quite a sum of cash). The customer has since been back a number of times but never mentioned the contents of the bag. My friend is now too embarrassed to ask outright, partly because she is only 99 per cent sure that she left the cash in the handbag. What should she do?
— J.W., Sydney

A. Why not assume the woman’s innocence and say, next time she appears at the stall, ‘I have a terrible feeling I put the day’s takings into that handbag you bought a few weeks ago. Could you just check?’ While the customer would have been within her legal rights to keep the money, the woman who owns the stall is giving her the chance to do the right thing.